I've Seen Your Eyes Before
by Sheryl Holmes
Summary: Elena Gilbert has recurring dreams about a blue-eyed man but can never recall his name nor can she ascertain whether or not he is merely a figment of her imagination. The dreams are vague, but they haunt her. It is becoming more and more evident to her that these dreams are fragmented memories... Now, she wants nothing more than to remember the crystalline-blue-eyed man.
1. Chapter I: Crystalline Blue Eyes

**_Note to the reader: This is officially my first fanfiction. I'm not all that into the Vampire Diaries, but after I watched a few seasons and read a few fanfictions, I realized that I REALLY needed to get this idea out of my head. The basis should become apparent after the first paragraph or so. Enjoy! And, please: Leave me any comments or reviews. If you hate it, I am desperate to hear why. If you love it or love me for writing it...the feeling is mutual. :) I would love feedback as to what I can improve upon. _**

_I've Seen Your Eyes Before…_

_Chapter I _

_i_

"His eyes…they were this incredible shade of blue. Like a crystal sea…," she murmured to her friend. The dark-skinned beauty leaned forward, nodding slightly for her to go on. "And his hair—it was pitch black. Bonnie, I could almost feel it!" Elena's eyes fluttered shut, remembering. "It was as soft as felt. Silken and soft…" Elena's own copper-black hair fell on either side of her face, framing her round features as the girl fell into a reverie.

"Poetic!" Caroline interrupted sarcastically from across the room. Elena furrowed her eyebrows, eyes still shut. Caroline was sprawled on Elena's bed, staring up at the ceiling. Her perfectly curled blonde hair was fanned out on the comforter around her head like a halo for Goldie Locks. With her fingers rolling on the wall over the bed frame, she certainly looked aggravated. However, she wasn't bored, per sé. Rather, she was somewhat annoyed that her childhood friend's dream wasn't as graphic as it apparently could have been in her somewhat guttural mind. Bonnie rolled her eyes at Care's lack of understanding. Her hypocorism was, admittedly, ironic. She often seemed _not _to "care". Her mind always resided somewhere between her own self-centered life and the personal business of those who surrounded her. She didn't care about details unless they regarded her own life or the secrets of people she barely knew. Caroline was a gossip. Caroline was shallow. But, to be fair, she was also almost always right about her observations, blunt and uncaring as they often seemed. Which is one of the many reasons Elena and Bonnie loved her—(in spite of her many flaws).

"Caroline," Elena sighed, looking down at her tangled web of nervous fingers, "I don't think you get it. No, it wasn't sexual. But—_Caroline, _it was _so intimate_. It was frightening." She looked up from her fingers and let her shoulders drop, suddenly aware of how tense she felt. She closed her eyes. The dream was confusing. Throughout the dream, she felt this intense sense of fear mixed with adoration. It was palpable. Elena had lived with strange nightmares her entire life. She was a constant sufferer of night terrors, actually, especially since the death of her parents. But this was different. There was a difference between nightmares and _this_. Because _this_ didn't just _seem_ real; it _felt_ real. In her every bone, she could feel the reverberation of her breath as she stared into this stranger's eyes. Who was he? Why did she feel like she knew him? Undoubtedly, he _must_ be a figment of her imagination…(at least, that's what she kept trying to convince herself). Caroline couldn't be expected to understand. One couldn't even expect Bonnie to understand, for that matter. Elena wasn't making any sense. She "felt" her dream?

Caroline's fingers shot up above her head in a reclining zombie pose. With air-quotes and a throat thick with sarcasm: "_Intimate_. Right. Because that has _nothing_ to do with se—"

"CAROLINE!" the other two girls yelled simultaneously.

Elena stood up from her desk with a frustrated moan and began to pace the room.

"This is the fourth time I've had this dream. I'm telling you—I've seen those eyes before!" _Those eyes. Where have I seen those eyes?_ Somewhere in the back of her mind, she could almost hear a man calling her name, gently yet with some hint of aggravation.

"Hey, didn't your dad have blue eyes?" Bonnie suggested.

"EW! Bonnie, did you _not_ just hear the part about 'intimate'?" Caroline remarked as she bounced off the bed, letting her curls recoil wildly around her pale, freckled face. Elena, however didn't seem to hear. For some reason she couldn't seem to focus. _I swear_, she thought, _if I have that dream one more time I'm going to go crazy_. "Who are you kidding," the voice seemed to taunt. "You're already crazy."

_ii_

It was a Friday and Elena had her heart set on having some clean fun. She was tired of reading articles online on how to interpret dreams or flipping through old photo albums looking for someone—anyone—with _those eyes_. Picking up the cell phone on her nightstand, she texted Matt, Bonnie, Tyler, and Caroline. She slid out of the sheets and walked through the bathroom that adjoined her and her brother's rooms.

She knocked three times. "Jer? You in there?" She heard some movement from behind the door before it opened. He looked at her, a blasé face of bored annoyance (as redundant as that may sound).

"Yep?" he asks, leaning against the door frame on his shoulder while popping the _p_ of the only word he could grace his older sister with. Nonetheless she smiles.

"Jer, would you like to go to the Grille tonight? I'm in the mood for a pool showdown." Jeremy's face suddenly lit up. It must have occurred to him that Elena hadn't felt like leaving the house for the past two weeks (which had, frankly speaking, made him worried, whether he'd say so or not). So he nodded happily.  
"Uh…yeah. Sure. Let me get my coat." He grinned. She smiled back, trying not to look quite as tired as she felt. She hadn't slept in thirty-one hours. She was beginning to feel like she was stuck in a less scary version of _Nightmare on Elm's Street_.

As Jeremy drove them to the Mystic Grille, she couldn't help but muse on the interesting path things had taken. She had been having the _exact same dream_ recurrently for three months—every night. But now, there would be glimpses of other things. There would be a flash of blood on a pair of thin lips, or a sharpened stick of wood reminiscent of a thick pencil void of lead. Eventually she had pieced together in her mind that she'd probably been traumatized by some sort of attack on this blue-eyed man (why else would there be blood on his face?) and that her subconscious had repressed it. Now she was no longer dying to know who this man was who apparently could conjure both fright and feelings of safety. Now she was just dying to get undisturbed sleep. She was dying to get sleep that did not include waking up with her heart about to beat out of her chest, despite the apparently harmless images that haunted her nightly. She wanted to feel normal again. _Normal_, she thought. Something about the word made her shudder.

"Are you cold?" Matt asked across the table. She looked up out of her brown study, suddenly aware that she had been in the Mystic Grille for over ten minutes. Matt looked worried. Elena glanced down at her arms to see that they were horripilating. Swallowing down the dryness in her throat, she made some lame excuse about the Grille being too cheap with the heater. It was seventy-five degrees inside and outside was a Virginian winter. The Grille most certainly was _not_ being cheap with the heating bill. Nevertheless, Matt seemed to buy it. With his wide blue eyes smiling at her, he removed his wool-lined jacket and handed it across to her. She carefully studied his eyes. _No, _she thought. _They don't have the crystalline depth…_

_iii_

The blue-eyed man. That was all she knew him as. She would dream about him freely, now. Glimpses of a half-smirk, or a black leather jacket. They were never enough to really create a solid description and, more often than not, these details would be forgotten before she entirely woke up. So Elena began to write in her diary again. She had stopped for a while after her last two had been lost (or stolen? She didn't know and didn't want to think about that).

_Dear Diary,_

_I had the dream again. This time, there was this pit of emotional agony in my stomach, like I never wanted to let the memory go. I couldn't stand it. It made me feel physically sick and when I woke up, I had to throw up in my bathroom. I must have emptied the one meal I had today. I don't know why these dreams are so bothersome to me. Everyone likes to point out how uneventful they are: "They're just glimpses", "It is just a pair of eyes", etc. But they act like these facts make my dreams somehow benign. They _aren't_ benign. They are painful. I can't eat, I don't want to sleep—but now I feel the urge to sleep. For some reason, I want to dream about the blue-eyed man but, even stranger, that desire makes me feel horribly guilty. The truth is, I think that I've gone coo-koo. I've decided that I can't talk to anybody about these dreams anymore because they might decide to do something about it—like put me on medication. And, honestly? Nothing scares me more. I want nothing more than to get rid of these dreams yet nothing on this earth scares me more than the thought of losing them. Of losing_ him_._

_Dear Diary,_

_I have begun to notice that certain words or things set off these memories/images and/or physical reactions. The word "normal" just sounds odd in my mouth—like its poison. The word "love" sounds misplaced and I feel torn. The smell of expensive bourbon makes me feel safe. I have no idea what it all means. Then there is this brand of cologne. When I smell it, I can't help but smile. Isn't that weird?_

_iv_

Elena was driving. It was a simple, cloudy-gray day and she was driving home from a visit with an old friend who had moved out-of-state for college. It shouldn't have been eventful. But it was.

Coming across a little off-road, suddenly Elena's arms did a trick of their own: They turned the wheel. She didn't do it. Her brain and her nerves did. They all seemed to scream out at the same time "HERE! TURN HERE!" Once on the little by-way, she couldn't very well make a u-turn. Although she did want to, she couldn't. There was no space. Some voice in the back of her head was screaming at her to turn back yet every ounce of her subconscious was fighting it. She sat there in the driver's seat, her coherent mind acting as an audience. She was watching as an apparently impersonal mental entity fought with her subconscious mind for control of the driver's wheel. And her subconscious was winning. For some reason, she was happy about that.

Finally, the little voice telling her to turn back shut up. It had been beat. Elena (or, rather, Elena's hands) turned into a large driveway in front of a huge old building. _If this were a horror film_, she thought grimly_, this place would be haunted. And if I had the nerve to set foot inside_, she continued as she shoved the building's door open_, then I would probably die._

Elena was a practical girl. She always was responsible, good, kind. Breaking into scary-looking buildings was not on her rap sheet. Underage drinking? Here and there. But breaking and entering? Hell, no. She wasn't that kind of person. (Note the past tense.)

As soon as she opened the door, something swept over her: familiarity. It was thick, it was obvious. And it reeked of the blue-eyed man.


	2. Chapter II: Broken Promises

**_I don't own the Vampire Diaries. I can only commend L.J. Smith for her genius in its creation and endlessly thank Julie Plec for her incredible screenwriting skills concerning its adaptation._**

**_Thank you for your reviews! I will try to update as often as possible. I know that this has been done before, but I could never find it done the way that I would have wanted it, so I figured "Why not write it myself?" I hope you like it and I'm sorry if this chapter isn't quite as well-written as the last one. I tend to write best in the wee hours of the morning and the last half of this chapter was written in the afternoon... :)_**

_Chapter II_

_i_

Everything was painfully familiar in unfamiliar ways. The rug, the high ceiling, the bourbon on the little table, the leather couches, the huge fireplace. She walked through the house as if she was in one of her dreams and, for a moment, she questioned whether or not that was the case. However, after tripping over a step into the den and bruising her elbows on the hardwood, she was rather certain that she was awake.

Carefully, she made her way up the flight of stairs. She looked either way, wondering vaguely if she was alone in the house but somehow not caring. There was a choice to go either left or right, but the left seemed to have a magnetic pull to it. Choosing to go to the left, she wandered down a corridor to be faced with a large cherry-wood door. Gently turning the brass knob, a wave of anger, resentment, and grudging _love_ washed over her. She stumbled in.

She was in a bedroom. Books lay scattered on a desk: Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein_, _Gone with the Wind, the Complete Shakespeare_, and other classics. There were also notes on the desk, written in a font that could only be described as calligraphic. In the center of the room was a large four-post bed. There was a closet and a large bathroom. The huge window was open, letting in the scent of the oak trees outside. The curtains billowed with the zephyrs that blew in. Elena was never one to believe in things that she couldn't see, but if she ever were to believe in ghosts, she would have thought that one existed in this room. She felt a presence, a presence that was begging to be given attention. It was in the back of her mind, struggling to bubble to the surface, but being weighed down by some mental anvil. Walking slowly to the bed, she touched the pillows. The bed obviously hadn't been slept in for months, if not longer. And the whole place seemed to be teeming with dust particles.

Then, she surprised herself. Without cause, without known reason, she began to cry. She crawled up onto the bed and curled herself into fetal position. Fractional memories swarmed her mind. "I will never leave you again." A kiss on death-bound lips. Tears. Blood. So many thoughts were associated with this place. All Elena could do was cry.

The words that had been on her tongue for months now clung to her mind and shouted at her to be spoken. Wincing her eyes shut tight, she refused to say them. The words didn't make any sense. It didn't make sense…

"I loved you," she whispered to no one. Those three words weren't quite right. The past tense of the word "love" wasn't appropriate for the way she felt. And she knew, somewhere deep in the pit of her stomach, that she had felt this way for years. Why did she feel like this? She didn't even know who she was in love with—only that she did love him, whoever he was. She _still_ loved him. The blue-eyed man without a name. That bastard who decided to leave her.

In a fit of abrupt rage, she fell off the bed and threw the pillows in every which-way, screaming to the walls that "you lied! You _lied!" _Her chest was heaving with angry breath and the room seemed to heave with her. The walls felt like they were caving in on her. _Why do I feel like this? What am I saying?_ she kept trying to reason with herself. But she couldn't reason with herself. Her body, her mind was on overdrive. She beat against the mattress with her fists and growled wildly. She kicked the wall with her tennis-shoe-clad toes and screamed in frustration. She wanted to break a hole in the wall. She wanted to tear the room apart. She wanted to burn everything. She wanted…she wanted him to come back to her.

Realizing what it was that she truly wanted, she felt her throat contract. Her hands went from tight fists to limp limbs. She stumbled backwards, suddenly fatigued. Then, shriveling into a mess in the corner, she began to sob.

"He lied," she mumbled weakly. There then pervaded only a silence infused with the gasps of weeping.

"You say that like its news."

_ii_

Elena's head shot up from her little ball on the floor. There, standing in front of her—the owner of the offensive voice—was_…? What the hell?_ Elena thought.

Standing before her was…_herself_. The spitting image of Elena Gilbert was standing before Elena Gilbert. The same face, the same hips, the same long legs, the same skin tone, the same hair (although this Elena's hair was curled).

"Who…?" Elena began. Her voice caught in her throat. _It's official, _she told herself. _You've lost it_.

"I know. _Shocker, _right?" Definitely _not_ Elena. Far too bitchy to _ever_ be Elena. This woman wasn't merely a figment of Elena's imagination, but if she was supposed to be her inner-self giving her some sort of pep talk, she was a damn imposter. All she'd said so far was ten words, but Elena already hated her.

"What?" the Elena-poster snorted. "You're just going to sit there crying all day? Don't you want to…_I don't know_…FIND him?" She was sarcastic, but not in the charming way. It was more like the "I'm begging to get punched" sort of way.

"How the hell," Elena wiped her tears, suddenly ashamed of them, "am I supposed to do that? I don't even _remember_ him!" Elena-poster wasn't impressed. At this point, she was sitting on the edge of the bed, absent-mindedly studying her fingernails. After a moment, she looked up. She seemed annoyed, as if she had forgotten Elena's presence and was bothered by the recurrence of it.

"Hm, I don't know? Go beg Goldie Locks to return your memories. I'd do it, but I figure this one act of kindness has already ruined my reputation as the Ice Bitch." _Goldie Locks?_ Seeing the confusion written on Elena's face, the imposter rolled her eyes. "You know? Barbie?" Elena-poster seemed thoughtful yet aggravated, as if she couldn't be bothered to think of an _actual name_. Suddenly, it came to her and she snapped her well-manicured fingers. "Caroline! That was her name." Before Elena could ask a question, the imposter was gone in a blur, leaving Elena gawking.

Then, the blur returned.

"Do me a favor, will you? Tell Goldie Locks that Katharine says hi…and that compulsion is apparently no match for human emotions." She shrugged lightly. Then, in a flash, she was gone. And this time she didn't come back.

_iii_

Not only was Elena left with an extreme fear that she had lost her mind, but now she was questioning whether or not (if, for instance, she wasn't yet insane) Caroline had cloned her. That seemed to be the only logical explan—scratch that. That seemed to be one of many incredibly impossible explanations in a sea of frightening discoveries. A woman who looked exactly like her had just appeared and disappeared at a speed that was definitely _not_ humanly possible. And Elena was beginning to believe that she was in love with the fragmental memory of a man who instilled fear into her very soul when she slept. Who, apparently, was not so imaginary after all. Little could Elena know just how truly bizarre the truth was—she had only just scratched the surface of her deeply-layered, altered memories.

The sound of a car zooming up reached Caroline's ears. She opened one eye. It sounded like Elena's car, but Elena never drove that fast…

"Caroline?" Bonnie asked. Care sat up on her bed. Bonnie was sitting beside her with a look of confusion. Caroline's body had stiffened significantly and her eyebrows were knit together. "Caroline, what's wrong?"

"Bad news, Bon. I think she figured it out." Bonnie harrumphed, then chuckled grimly.

"Well, as much as that would bring me great joy, we both know full well that regaining memory is impossible."

"Tell that to the pissed lady storming into my bedroom." Almost before the words left her mouth, Caroline's door was swung open and slammed against the wall. Elena stood there, her amber eyes blazing like fire, mascara smeared down her cheeks, and her entire body shaking. _Oh shit_, Caroline thought. If she wasn't mistaken, she could smell _him_ on Elena. How the hell could Elena smell like him? Did she find him?

"Elena!" Bonnie exclaimed. She was obviously going to pretend that Elena didn't look as pissed as she did. She was going to pretend that everything was honky-dory. Unfortunately, that didn't fly with Elena.

"What the _hell_ did you _do_ to me, Caroline?!" Elena's voice cracked and was far higher than Caroline had ever heard it.

"Elena, calm down. I didn't do anything to you," Caroline began.

"_Don't_ _lie to me, Caroline!_" Elena's voice suddenly reached a volume that made Bonnie cower back a little—which, in itself, was quite a feat. "I know you did something to me. I told myself!"

The last sentence confused everyone, included Elena. She hadn't actually meant to say that _she_ had told herself, but rather that the Elena-poster had. Shaking her head and restarting: "Katherine said that impulsion is no match for human emotions!" Caroline and Bonnie looked even more confused, and perhaps a bit frightened.

"I think you meant compulsion, not impulsion," Caroline retorted, giving Elena a look as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Elena's own confusion had calmed her somewhat, so she just nodded and scratched her head, not certain if had meant either word.

"Care…," Bonnie began. Her head was angled downward as she murmured to Caroline, as if she were trying to express a far deeper meaning than Caroline's name. Caroline made a very girly growling noise to express her aggravation.

"NO, Bonnie. The answer is _no!_"

"Why not? She obviously can't be fooled anymore, Caroline!"

"Because we _promised!_ And, even if you would like to think you're above this, you _aren't_! We both agreed that this is what was best for her!"

"I said that I wouldn't tell her, but I never said I approved of it!"

Elena watched as the two girls shouted back and forth, as if they were oblivious of Elena's presence. Caroline had a certain animalistic quality to her that she was aiming at Bon. Bonnie had a dark look in her eye, as if she were about to do something dangerous. The entire situation and the fact that she had no idea what was going on was enough to make Elena exhausted.

Grabbing the chair from the other side of the room, Elena dragged it in front of the bed where the two girls sat yelling, and straddled it. She leaned tiredly on her forearms and watched as they made mention of "he said!" and "you promised!" and "she needs to know!" or "this is unnatural!" Elena looked up as she cleared her throat, effectively gaining their attention. She looked back down. Her face was back to normal—Elena was back to her over-analytical, caring self. She was willing to get through this without having a mental breakdown.

"Just tell me," she said.


	3. Chapter III: The Truth

**_Hiya there... So, here's the next chapter. I apologize for it being too short. There is way more to this story and it is just a tad bit Alternate Universe since there are some minor differences that will be revealed later. Basically, there are some major second-season spoilers that the reader should be aware of before he/she reads any further. I'd hate to ruin the show for you. Not only that, but if you read this before you watch the second season, it will confuse the heck out of you. People who have seen the second season will get most of the jokes, as well as my meaning in admittedly weird stuff Caroline tells Elena. If you don't get it yet, you will by the next chapter. :) Thanks for reading and reviews are welcome wholeheartedly!_**

_Chapter III_

_i_

It wasn't as if Caroline and Bonnie could just tell her. It wasn't as if they could lay out the last two years of her life and actually have her believe that she'd forgotten it effortlessly (or, apparently _not_ so effortlessly)… Even if Elena _did_ believe them (supposing she was even _capable_ of comprehending something so positively bizarre) that wouldn't necessarily do them any good, either.

They had a choice. They could either: a) Tell Elena a lie; b) Tell Elena a partial truth, or; c) Tell Elena about the whole, screwed-up truth of a mess that was once her life.

A: Behind door #1 was the easy way out—Elena would never have to re-live horrific memories that had once plagued her dreams and thoughts. Instead, she would simply go on dreaming about a man whom she could be taught to believe had never existed. She would probably have to go on medication since she was definitely past believing half of anything Bonnie or Caroline had to say to her. Basically, the down side to the first choice would be that Elena would forever be considered insane—even by herself. _Yep,_ thought Caroline. _Definitely _not _an option._

C: The third possibility had some major repercussions. Elena would be shell-shocked and likely unable to cope. She would beg Caroline to return her memories—which, little did the Ice Bitch know, wasn't actually possible. Caroline had been a "vegetarian" for a while now, which made un-compelling Elena an impossibility, especially if Mystic Falls hoped to out-live yet another inexplicable string of "animal attacks". Falling off the blood-bag-wagon usually caused some serious ripper problems, which wouldn't exactly make Caroline's mother (the sheriff) a happy camper. So…compelling (at least by Caroline) wasn't a realistic possibility. An animal-sucker compelling Elena's memories back wouldn't work—at least not properly—and would probably screw up whatever sanity was left in the Gilbert girl's pretty little head. So, telling her the truth without compulsion? Not a good idea. Instead of truly understanding any of it, Elena would go looking for two men that she'd never find nor could she remember. In time, she would go insane eventually anyway. Again, not an option. Even Bonnie wasn't self-righteous enough to think the truth was the answer in this case. She expressed this belief to Caroline with an imperceptibly slight head-shake.

B: Choice number two…Now this presented an interesting compromise. It was a middle ground, the golden mean…the lesser of two evils. They could probably tell Elena just enough of the truth to satisfy her need to know, while simultaneously frightening her away from asking for more information. A little bending of the facts could easily prevent any reckless activity on her part and a little omission of a few select truths would probably fix the issue permanently. Elena would be sufficiently saved from herself. _Bingo_, Caroline thought to herself. She smirked a little at Bonnie. _Ugh_, Bonnie pondered guilty.

Caroline was suddenly perky. She turned to a tear-smeared Elena with bright bulging eyes and a sweet, deceptively innocent smile.

"Elena, I think you're right. You need to know." Bonnie looked warily from Caroline to Elena, wondering what the hell Caroline thought she was doing.

"So, would you like me to be gentle, or just lay it on you?" Elena nodded with an exhausted look on her face.

"Just tell me, Caroline. I don't care about how you say it, I just need to know."

Caroline was thoughtful. "Mm, okay," she says slowly. She was apparently choosing the "gentle" way.

Then, in a quick run of words, she decided to "lay it" all out:

"Elena, you are the doppelganger of an ancient vampire who outsmarted an _original _vampire who needed her blood to perform a ritual that would give him the ability to become both a vampire and a werewolf. She was the other you that told you to talk to me. Since she became a vampire, effectively destroying Klaus's—that was his name—plans, he had to wait for the next doppelganger—that's you—so that he could become a practically invincible creature…," she takes a breath, as she bounces on her bed, looking more like she's rambling about a cute pair of shoes that she bought at the mall than relating a traumatizing string of supernatural events, "Anywho, when he found you, somebody had turned me into a vampire, so I tried to protect you with my supernatural strength and abilities. Unfortunately, he got to you eventually and I thought all was lost. But, he also needed a witch to perform the ceremony, a werewolf, and another vampire to sacrifice, along with you. He had the witch and he took Tyler as the werewolf—"

"Wait, Tyler Lockwood is a werewolf?!" Elena's eyes bugged out of her face in shock and horror. Bonnie looked confused. _Wait, that's _all _that you found a _little _strange? _Bonnie thought sarcastically. Caroline, however, was not amused by interruptions. Glaring venomously:

"Yes! Don't interrupt—As I was saying, he kidnapped you, Tyler, and your Aunt Jenna…," she paused. There was a sudden silence at the mention of Elena's dead guardian.

"I'm sorry, Elena…But your aunt wasn't shot when she was mugged," Bonnie offered. She put her hand on Elena's. Elena looked up at them with tears in her eyes.

"Somehow I think I knew that…," she murmured.

Caroline cleared her throat. "I'm so sorry, Elena. Should I…?"

"Keep going," Elena insisted, her hair waving around her head as it bobbed in agreement.

"Okay…well, after—after he found another werewolf for the _ritual_," Caroline says carefully, "since Tyler escaped, your uncle John, who is actually your biological father—" Elena gawked. Bonnie winced. _Really, Caroline? You couldn't have left _that_ out?_ "—gave up his life by having Bonnie—who is actually a witch—" Bonnie smiles sheepishly. "—perform a ritual so that you could come back to life after you died from Klaus sucking you dry." Elena's hand shot up to her neck, searching for an absent scar. Caroline shrugged and made a "don't be silly" look. Waving her hand as if to say "pshaw", she remarks, "Oh, I took care of that. You drank some of my blood later to clear up the wound." Elena's face twisted into one of grotesque disgust.

"I—I _what?!_ No! I'm religious!" Elena started, standing up and suddenly pacing. Her fingers threaded through her hair and she began to back out of the room. "You—you're crazy! You're all—no, _I'm crazy!_" she shouted, looking frantically in every direction. She was beginning to act like a trapped animal, tears streaming down her cheeks onto the carpet and her hands caught in knots in her dark hair.

Just as she turned to run out of the room, Caroline appeared in front of her. In a similar fashion to the "Ice Bitch", she blurred as she shut the door with inhuman speed, effectively expressing the truth in her strange, dementedly terrifying speech.

"Elena, you have to listen to me," her hands went up in front of her, as if dealing with a scared child. "I'm _not_ evil. Look! I don't even drink human blood!" She grinned, as if to display an absence of fangs.

Elena screamed.

_ii_

"I'm a doppelganger."

All nod.

"And you," she points at Caroline, "are a vampire?"

She nods.

"You," (at Bonnie), "are a witch?"

"…yep," Bonnie shrugged, giving Elena a characteristic sidewise humorless smirk.

"Okay…and you've died?"

Elena was sitting in her living room. Caroline had brought her there, calling together everyone whose memories had not been compelled away. That included Alaric, her new guardian since the death of her aunt.

"Yes," he replied with a slow head-bow.

"Um…how many times?" Elena's eyebrows pulled downward. Alaric's eyebrows mimicked.

"Uh—" he stopped. "I—I'm not sure…?" He looked around looking for help, but only received shrugs and thoughtful looks.

"You can't remember how many times you've died?" Elena deadpanned.

"Um…_no_. Sorry." He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

Elena leaned forward and put her head in her hands. In the past hour, it had been explained to her that last year she had been the key to a frightening ritual that had killed her aunt, her biological father, and herself. Alaric had tried to save her and had been killed (innumerable times, it seems) in his attempts, but had been saved by an "eternity ring". _That solves the mystery of the ugly jewelry, _she thought. Her best friend was a witch and her other best friend was the vampire that had compelled away these memories (before having a change of diet). Caroline had supposedly hoped to cure Elena of the extreme depression and guilt she felt over these circumstances and occurrences. Therefore, she had erased them from her recollection.

So, here she sat with Sheriff Forbes, Alaric, Tyler Lockwood, Caroline, Bonnie, and Jeremy (who, since the events, could somehow see ghosts). They couldn't be compelled to forget for various reasons—Jeremy, for instance, would have been left to deal with the ghosts without explanation of why he was seeing them. The Sheriff had always been aware of vampires since she was part of a centuries-old clandestine town council which had banded together to prevent them from terrorizing Mystic Falls. Alaric had to remember in order to protect Elena, since she was apparently a supernatural-danger magnet and he was the only person invincible enough to do the job right. Tyler was Caroline's boyfriend and refused to have his memory taken, which Caroline actually respected despite extreme opposition on all sides. Bonnie was a witch and everyone agreed that it would be best for her to remember in the case of an emergency. That only left Elena and Matt. Matt was quickly compelled against his will. Elena, however, begged to forget. She didn't want to live with the guilt of so many deaths. She was depressed and borderline suicidal. So Caroline compelled away all the memories.

All, except one. Unintentionally, it seemed that Elena's terror had left her to remember the eyes of her attacker.

The crystalline eyes belonged to Klaus.

* * *

**_P.S.: My favorite line from this is "I'm religious!" just because it sounds really out-of-context. I don't really know why I wrote it...but I'm glad I did. I giggle like crazy every time I reread it._**


	4. Chapter IV: I Will Never Leave You Again

**_Yay! A new chapter! So, I took my time with this one and I hope you all like it. I am pretty proud of it. The part where I quote Damon (death-bed-kissy-thing) made me pretty happy. As always, if you have any recommendations, please feel free to suggest them. :) If you would like to mention something to me for the plot, I'm open to anything, so please feel free to PM me, as well. I'm always looking to improve upon anything and everything. This one is longer than the last three and I really do hope you like it. If you don't however, I still would like to know. Leave it it the reviews!_**

_Chapter IV: _

_i_

Elena had a lot of questions. She wanted to know how much of her memory had been taken and for how long. The "how much" was left pretty unclear, but Caroline eventually informed her that she had been like this for a good two months before she began to have the dreams of Klaus. The dreams and feelings, Caroline explained, Klaus must have compelled Elena to have, since he had been a powerful vampire. Caroline believed that they were meant to confuse Elena in order for her to feel close to him and trust him when, in actuality, he hoped to kill her. Ironically enough, Elena felt herself trusting the fragmental memory of her assailant far more than she trusted her own friends and family. She had been compelled almost an entire seven months ago—five months of dreaming of the man who tried to kill her and _no one _had said a word. At this knowledge, she was left feeling as if no one that she had ever trusted deserved her faith in them. No one was on her side and she hated that she felt as if it were all a horrible conspiracy.

No one had had the guts to tell her. And what was the big deal? She would have been able to get over the guilt and depression—_No, you wouldn't have_, she eventually realized. The truth was, now that she _was_ aware of the events that had taken place, she _did_ feel guilty. She couldn't forgive herself for her aunt's death or for the multiple deaths all her friends had witnessed and/or experienced. She winced just at the thought of Klaus snapping Alaric's neck. She couldn't stand it. In that way, she found herself agreeing with them that the compulsion _was_ necessary, to some level. On the other hand, she could even _begin_ to believe that she had asked them for it. She couldn't trust them. The trust was gone—probably forever. Not because they had compelled her and kept serious secrets from her…but because she knew that even _now_ they hadn't told her the whole truth.

After a little while, she began to realize some things. The first thing she deduced was that they must have stolen her last two diaries in order to prevent her from re-reading her old entries. Now that they had (supposedly) told her the entire truth, wouldn't they want to give back her diaries so that she could try to recall the past events? If the cat was truly out of the bag, then there would be no need to continue to withhold evidence. Instead, no one brought up the diaries. Even when she once vaguely complained about them having been stolen, no one seemed to so much as hint that they would return them to her. Instead, there would be equally vague replies about how "you must have lost them, Elena" or just an "I'm so sorry, Elena". She was beginning to feel like the child who hadn't yet been given the "talk". There was some mass conspiracy withholding an important secret but no one had the courage or desire to tell her. _What could possibly be worse than "all my friends are supernatural creatures"?_ she thought frightfully.

As the days passed, she felt herself feeling less and less close to the people she had once entrusted all her faith in. She once could have trusted these people with her life, but now it seemed that the entire town was some sort of prison to her, where no one would be honest with her and she couldn't go anywhere without feeling as if someone was watching her ("for her own good"). Finally, she laid it out to them:

"I can't trust you anymore." The words left her lips and fell to the floor like anvils. They were heavy and seemed to shatter the room. Everyone looked at her in despair. All these people, these people to whom she had once given her faith and love, were now enemies as far as she could see. And, although she could tell they felt guilt for the way they were treating her, she did not let on that she knew why. She pretended that the only reason she couldn't trust them was that she had been compelled in the first place, not because she knew the lying was on-going. No one answered her statement. Instead, eyes looked away and some of them were tear-pricked. That was it. "And I don't want _any of you_," her eyes fell on Caroline, "following me anymore, do you understand? I am tired of it. I already feel betrayed. I don't think I deserve to feel violated, too." Caroline looked as if she were about to protest, but Alaric's eyes stabbed her. She closed her mouth.

"She's right, Caroline," Alaric turned to Elena. "I'm sorry. We will give you your privacy. Maybe, if we trust you, one day you can learn to trust us again, as well." He looked sincerely apologetic and very sad about having to lie to her. Elena nodded and smiled grimly. Looking over everyone, she thought, _I will always love you, but I cannot—I _will not_ be lied to any longer. Until you can be honest with me, I cannot forgive you._

From that day forward, Elena retracted from them. She wondered if perhaps Caroline was still following her, but it appeared that she wasn't and the feeling of being watched eventually subsided. However, she continued to refrain from writing in her diary out of the fear that they would read it "for her own safety". Something in the pit of her stomach churned at the thought that anyone could presume to know what was best for her…

_ii_

The more that Elena retracted from the people around her, the safer she began to feel. She found herself crying at the thought that the people she loved most were the same ones who had hurt her so deeply. Elena had to excuse herself to the ladies' room when she was with "friends" at the Mystic Grille so that she could get in a good cry. Matt was oblivious and the thought of his ignorance just made her feel even more ill. She was beyond convincing herself that it was all just some sick joke or hoax when a few months had passed without anyone saying "Surprise! Just kidding!" It was morbid how desperately she wished for that, but she knew down to the marrow of her bones that everything (or at least the majority of what) they had told her was the truth. Even knowing that they hadn't told her _everything_, she knew that they had only left out details. She hadn't always been such a gut-directed individual, but she figured that if vampires, witches, and werewolves existed, then being led by "vibes" wasn't exactly the most ridiculous thing she could believe in.

Something was seriously amiss. For one, she knew that something about this Klaus guy didn't quite add up. What she'd felt and remembered—especially that whole death-bed-kissy-thing—didn't jive with what they said about him, even if she had been "compelled" to love him…

She hadn't told them that she went to the boarding house. Instead, she pretended that the truth scared her in order to make them trust that she wouldn't do something stupid—like try to find _him_. She did wonder if maybe Klaus made these memories up and compelled them into her mind so that she'd trust him. This, of course, would act as a failsafe if he ever wanted to find her; _she_ would be looking for _him_. But when she would consider that, she'd feel sick; she hoped desperately that this kind of feeling—this feeling of "epic" love—could not possibly be a lie. She hoped that this feeling of torturous adoration was real because, otherwise, she didn't see how anything else _could_ be true love…

_iii_

After a few months, once everyone began to trust that she wouldn't ask any more questions, she started visiting the boarding house frequently. She hadn't told anyone that she had gone there—instead, she had claimed that she ran into Katherine out-of-town. Even before they explained everything fully, she had been cautious about telling them about the boarding house. She still didn't know what the place meant to her lost memories and the fact that they hadn't ever mentioned it made her even more certain that it had to be kept under wraps.

The more Elena began to revisit the building, the more she realized how much she needed it. It brought her a sense of safety to be there, as if the very atmosphere was protective. She found that, without these visits, she couldn't seem to get through the week without having some sort of break-down. She _needed_ to see his room, smell the bourbon and the cologne on his desk, read his books. These trips, however, had to be timed carefully so as not to arouse suspicion. She couldn't use Caroline or Bonnie as excuses like she used to (since she realized that they would call each other after she left their houses), so she ended up visiting her out-of-town friend more and more often. She explained to anyone who asked that she needed time apart from the people of Mystic Falls. She secretly hoped that Katherine might show up again in the boarding house, but she never did. Apparently, the Elena-poster couldn't be bothered to give her another hint…

_iv_

Sitting in the living room one day, with her feet propped on the couch as she warmed herself in front of the fireplace, a thought occurred to Elena. _Photos! _Elena fell off of the couch, suddenly excited at the possibility that anything could jog her memory. She ran up the stairs and barged into _his _bedroom. She looked under the mattress, in the desk, and everywhere else that she could think. The notes on his desk were silly things like grocery lists or notes saying "be back before sun-up", written in handwriting that had a delicate, yet masculine, style to them.

Elena was beginning to feel defeated, when she lifted one of the pillows on his bed. She did find something—a picture of herself, leaning against a tree. A miserable feeling of love trickled through her torso. Miserable, because he wasn't there with her. She shook her head in confusion. _If he killed me, shouldn't I be feeling sick? I mean, this would seem kind of stalker-ish, right? _she asked herself. _I don't know. This seems so…sweet. _Elena closed her eyes and held the photo to her chest. She heaved in a breath and put the photo in her pocket before she continued her search in the other rooms.

Elena had searched every room in the house now with the exception of one. Six of the seven living-quarters and all of the other rooms had been checked off as having absolutely _no_ pictures, writings, or other paraphernalia that could return her memories.

The only room left to search was the bedroom to the left of the staircase. And it frightened her.

_v_

Elena stood in front of the door. She was taking in her breath slowly, hearing it hitch. There was something about this room—it made her feel as if opening the door would let out some dangerous creature that could kill her, rip her to shreds. Finally, Elena gathered the strength to enter. Turning the knob, she let the door swing open slowly, making a squeaking sound as it did so. Inside, she saw a mess of clothes, broken furniture, and dust; it was painfully obvious that whoever left this room did so in a hurry, and with a great deal of emotional turmoil. She swallowed hard as she took her first step in. _I have to look, I just have to look…_, she reassured herself.

She slowly went through all the broken furniture and the drawers, sifted through each article of clothing in the closet, and raked her eyes over each and every document of paper that was strewn across the floor. She was aware that time was of the essence, noting that being away too long would cause people to worry—they might even call her friend to ask when Elena had left. But she was equally aware of her palpable fear in this room, of the stabbing paranoia that made her wonder whether or not there was _something_ behind her. Somehow, being in here just felt _wrong_.

Something was poking out from under the big bed off to the side. Furrowing her eyebrows, she walked over and leaned down to pick it up. She slid her hand under the bed and pulled out a little square of paper. Still squatting, she looked at the thing in her hand. It was a photo, edged with a stain of blood. She knew he wasn't the man she searched for, but thought that she might as well glance at his eyes. But his eyes weren't blue. However, instead of feeling annoyance, she felt something entirely different. Her chest clenched harshly.

_vi_

No, his eyes weren't blue. They were green. And she remembered them, oh yes, she remembered _those eyes_.

These eyes…she suddenly began to freak out. She breathed heavily, gripping her chest as she stumbled backward out of the room. _I need to get out of here. Danger_, her mind thought unclearly. _DANGER_, it screamed_._ She dropped the photo as if it were on fire and ran out in a horrified frenzy. But as she reached the stairs, she began to lose control of her legs; she couldn't feel them anymore. Starting to stagger down the stairs, gripping at the banister with each memory that tore through her, she lurched over the steps. _He bit me. He fed on me._ Extreme fear seized her. _His eyes…they are veined and red_. _His mouth has my blood on it._ She could see the memory clearly, could see his smirk that instilled terror into every fiber of her being, could feel his eyes digging into her neck as hungrily as his teeth soon would…and she was desperately afraid. She was reliving it and the memories were attacking her mercilessly. _I can't go into that room, _she shouted at herself internally. Reeling down the stairs, Elena swayed forward and collapsed. She slid down a few steps until her head hid the wall of the first flight. She was laying upside-down, feet and legs extended limply on the second flight of stairs and her head leaning against the wall connecting the two flights. She could barely breathe. She felt paralyzed, uneasy, sick, and terrified. Elena stared up the stairway, half-expecting the monster to come swaggering down the steps to finish the job. And she was too tired to get up and run. Exhausted by the fright of her memories, she closed her eyes as tears streamed down her face into her hair. She started to cry hysterically, feeling her body shake against the floor beneath her. A voice (_the blue-eyed man's voice, _she realized) ran through her head comfortingly, saying: "I will _never_ leave you again."

A new power surged through her as a rage boiled in her abdomen. "_I will never leave you"?_ she asked the voice mockingly. She felt the urge to laugh at the irony of that ill-timed reminiscence. Leaning up onto her elbows, she whirled her head up and down, as if searching for the owner of the mysterious voice. Not finding him, she narrowed her eyes as she looked to his bedroom above her. Screamed into the house, "You liar!" _Louder_, she ordered herself. This time with more conviction: "You left me with _him!_ You LIAR!" With the crack of the last enraged statement, she broke back down into tears, her contorted face giving way to the spasms of terror mixed with emotional anguish. The ambivalence seemed to stab into her heart with more force than the green-eyed monster's own fangs had assaulted her jugular vein. With her last ounce of misery, she bayed: "Liar!" But the only reply she receives is an empty echo off the walls.

* * *

_**Note to the reader (again): If you have anything that you think I need to change, let me know. Also: This story will NEVER have Evilaric, since Alaric is basically one of my favorite characters in the entire series and I can't bear the thought of him dying. Secondly, this is set somewhere post-3x06 and also somewhat Alternate-Universe, since, in this story, the whole "Original" fiasco has been "taken care of", so to speak. That will all be explained later in the story, but I wanted you all to know where I'm starting the story off. God bless and enjoy!**_


	5. Chapter V: The Death of Me

**_Quick note by the author: Firstly, I don't own the Vampire Diaries. I am not quite that genius. ;) Secondly, I want to apologize if this is dragging on. I feel sort of bad that we are already into the fifth chapter and there is STILL NO DAMON. My apologies; he WILL appear in the next chapter, I swear. The reason I waited so long is because I needed the set-up to be perfect; Damon is probably my favorite character and I couldn't have him revealed without finesse. So, I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it! If you have any suggestions, you can leave them in the reviews or PM me._**

_Chapter V:_

_i_

After the day Elena experienced her very post-traumatic-stress-disorder-reminiscent living nightmare, she refused to return to the boarding house. She was deeply injured emotionally and shaken to her very core. Although desperately wanting to ask _someone_ about the identity of the man who had apparently attacked her, she knew that by doing so she would also be revealing that she had been in the house—and _that_ she could not do.

Thinking things over and over, she eventually concluded with some certainty that whoever the green-eyed _thing_ had been, he must have been some sort of friend of Klaus or part of his cohort. If he lived in the same building as the man who had kidnapped and killed her, then it would only stand to reason that this green-eyed man—who had so violently (so _brutally_) damaged her—was his accomplice. In this way, she mentally confirmed that these feelings of love and adoration for the memory of Klaus obviously were tricks of the mind, implanted by Klaus in order to confuse her.

She vowed to never give in to the painful lies that still haunted her. She vowed to never believe that she had ever loved the blue-eyed man. She tried everything she could to restrain herself from these emotions, but no matter how hard she tried to convince herself that this man must have been a monster, she couldn't convince herself entirely that these emotions weren't real. In her dreams, they _felt_ real. When she was awake, they felt real. Not merely in her heart, but in her _soul_.

Again, Elena was never a truly emotional individual. She had seen her parents die before her very eyes. She had (apparently) witnessed her own aunt's death. She had been to hell and back with this whole compulsion ordeal. But, the only two things in the past two years of her life that could make her cry (as far as she could remember) was the terrific memory of the green-eyed man…and her yearning for the crystalline blue-eyed man.

As her desire to remember him grew, her dreams seemed to comply. Although she still could only see his eyes and a lock of raven hair draped over them, she could swear in her dreams that she felt the rough pads of a man's fingers caress her cheek. Once there was even the memory of his voice, drawling as slow and sweet as dripping honey, pronouncing her name as if it were the most beautiful sound in the world…and, frankly, when he was saying it, her name certainly _did_ sound like music. Unlike when she was conscious, in her dreams Elena did not feel the need to fight her growing adoration for these fleeting memories. Instead, she basked in them, shamelessly begging the figment of her imagination to never let her wake. But, his eyes only seemed to smile bitterly, as if to say "Elena, you have to wake up. You need to move on…" As if he _wanted_ her to move on…why would he want her to "move on" if he had only done this to torture her?

Elena's eyes flew open. Her chest was heaving, sweat was on her forehead and her hands were gripping the sheets. Her heart clenched as she stared at the white of her ceiling. She winced. _Damn it_, she cursed internally. _Why do I have to wake up?_ Then, in sudden realization of what she was thinking, she mentally reneged and reprimanded herself. _You have to wake up because he's a monster, that's why! You shouldn't even want these dreams…they aren't real_, she tacked on with a pang of regret in her stomach. She looked at the clock. _3:42_ the numbers glowed out from the pitch black darkness. She sighed heavily and tried to return to sleep…but, every time she closed her eyes, the image of his gaze seemed to be tattooed to her eyelids. With every breath she inhaled, the scent of his cologne would stain her lungs. With every thought that fled through her mind, his raven hair and velvet voice would haunt her. Yes, that was the word. Like some sadistic ghost, he _haunted_ her.

_ii_

Elena continued to believe that something was being withheld from her. Although she now obviously agreed with the assertion that these "memories" were actually false implantations by Klaus that were meant to perplex and disorient her, she also recognized that neither Caroline nor any of the others had ever mentioned a green-eyed assailant or that she had ever been in their home. Furthermore, Caroline had never told her exactly what happened after the ritual. Did Klaus die? Something in Elena grimaced at the thought. And when did he have time to implant the thoughts…? In fact, Caroline had insinuated that the only contact Elena had ever had with Klaus was _during_ the ritual—which made absolutely _no_ sense. She could remember how he smelled after a single encounter? She could recall _each_ and _every_ detail about his voice and every speck of color in his eyes, every flicker of light in the onyx of his hair—because she met him once the day he'd killed her?

Elena pondered as she began to deep-clean her room. It was Saturday and Alaric had recently suggested that Jeremy and Elena clean at least once a week, which wasn't exactly the worst suggestion that a guardian-newbie could make. Elena huffed distractedly as she struggled to pull the sheet from her mattress.

_Okay, so maybe we have some sort of killer/victim connection? As far as I can see, weirder things have happened…_ Elena's eyes rolled as she thought of everything she had learned in the past month about what had occurred last year. _Yeah. WAY weirder things have happened…_

She began to take the pillows out of their cases as she furrowed her eyebrows in thought. _I wonder what could make them want to hide anything from me…? Could I really have wanted this?_

As if in answer of her query, a piece of paper fell unceremoniously out of her pink floral pillowcase. She stared down at it blankly. It was slightly crumpled, probably by the nightly weight of her head. Knitting her eyebrows and narrowing her eyes, she reached out to touch it. For a moment, she wondered whether or not she should even touch it—who would want to leave a piece of paper in her pillowcase? Did she do it, herself? Suddenly, Elena realized that the only memories Caroline had supposedly removed were those involving the supernatural. Ergo, if Elena couldn't remember putting the piece of paper there, then it must have something to do with her lost memories. And who else could have placed it in such an intimate place, knowing that only Elena could be the one to find it unless someone were to search her bedroom? It was almost as if she had placed it in there on purpose in order to jog her own memory later on…which could only mean that she hadn't _wanted_ to be compelled.

Still, she faltered. Staring at it, she considered grimly that she might have another green-eyed-monster breakdown, especially if it turned out to be a photo when she turned it over. However, curiosity won over. She stretched out her arm, as if she were about to deal with something filthy that shouldn't be touched by unprotected human hands. She lifted it by its corner.

On the other side, there was writing. She lifted it and held it up to her eyes. It was her handwriting. Elena relaxed and brought it closer. In huge, capital letters there was written a single word:

REMEMBER

At first, Elena was shocked. Then, exalted. Then—downright pissed.

True, this confirmed every suspicion she had held concerning her memory—evidently, she had not originally asked to have her memory taken. On the other hand, this was disconcerting for several reasons. Not only did the message look hurried and somehow unpleasant, but it made Elena frustrated with her past self. _Seriously?_ she asked herself. _You couldn't have left a more descriptive clue?_

Then, beneath the word, Elena noticed that the paper was slightly folded. She raised her eyebrow and tucked her hair behind her ear in order to see better. Gingerly, she peeled the fold away from itself, worried that the year-old crumpled mess might rip under her fingertips.

Elena's mouth fell open into an unattractive gape. Beneath the pleat was—? She gasped. It was an address, handwritten in old-fashioned font…like the masculine yet delicate font that she'd seen on the blue-eyed man's desk. Her entire body reacted with an uncontrollable elation. Her fingers trembled as she held it, staring as if it couldn't possibly be real. This was wonderful! Momentarily, she even told her conscience to go to hell while she celebrated the fact that maybe, just maybe, she could find the love of her—scratch that—the bastard who killed her and make him return her memories. She tried to regain her composure, trying desperately not to get her hopes quite so high, irrationally afraid that the paper would spontaneously combust in her very hands. _Wouldn't surprise me_, she groaned with irony from within her throat. _Life seems to really hate me lately, but maybe things are turning arou—_

There was a firm knock at the door. _Speaking of…_ she panicked internally. Jamming the paper into her back pocket, she turned on her heel just fast enough to calmly greet Alaric into her bedroom.

"Hey, Ric," she grinned with perfectly disarming ease. In the back of her mind, she decided that she would return to the note later tonight, when everyone was sleeping. Then, she would finally meet her blue-eyed torturer.

_iii_

She woke up at around two in the morning, grabbing the slip of paper and the photo she had found under his pillow from out of her own pillowcase. Elena wondered a little why she had decided to keep something of his; that would seem somewhat creepy to anyone in their right mind, but she couldn't help but feel safe when she would look at the photo. It made her wonder if maybe—as sick as it sounded—the man who had successfully killed her had perhaps also loved her to some degree. She winced at the sick naïveté of that thought. _He killed you, Elena. He didn't just _try _to kill you; he _did _kill you. Stop trying to convince yourself that there is some good in him… He is a blood-sucking vampire. He has no humanity—not for you, or anyone else._

Elena grabbed a bag from her closet and packed a few necessities. This was going to be a fairly long trip. She thought over whether or not this was a wise decision, but couldn't stop herself from continuing. Even if she did feel guilt at what she was about to do (and she did), she also knew two things: 1) They had lied to her, forced away her memories, and followed her around like an FBI detail. She shouldn't be feeling guilty for sneaking out when _they_ had betrayed _her_. 2) If she never took this opportunity to discover the truth, she would regret it for the rest of her life. Elena _knew_ that this would be the only opportunity that she'd ever have to retrieve her lost memories. And the permanent memory loss of some of the most significant events of her thus-short life was not an acceptable option.

She slipped out of her window, careful not to wake Alaric or Jeremy. She knew they would probably wake up anyway when they heard the car start (then call Caroline to follow her), so she would just have to drive fast enough that they couldn't see in which direction she was headed. With quick look back into her bedroom as she crouched on her roof, she swallowed hard, wondering if she would ever return. This was dangerous, she knew. If she _did_ find Klaus, he might want to finish the job. She knew that, too. But she had to go. "I have to," she whispered into the crisp morning air.

With that, she heaved herself onto the oak tree just outside her bedroom window. Like she had done so many nights when her parents had been sleeping (what seemed so long ago), Elena quickly climbed her way downward from the big tree, her backpack slung over one shoulder. However, unlike those nightly excursions years ago, this trip was not to go to an underage-drinking party with the cool kids or to comfort Caroline about her most recent break-up at their old haunt. No; as Elena jumped to the autumn floor, the pressure of the cold wind chilling her bones, she acknowledged that this trip was much different. This could be the road that led to her death.

* * *

**_Another Author's Note: I noticed that "the original bitch" requested that I add more Ice Queen. So...I would love to know how you would like me to portray her, since I do have a LOT of ideas for Katherine's part in the next many chapters. I intend for her to be in the rest of this story (which will likely be very long). So, if you want to PM me, feel free. You could leave ideas in the review section, as well; either way works for me. :) I'd hate to misrepresent a beloved character._**


	6. Chapter VI: Greek God, Knight Errant

_**So...somewhat shorter new chapter. But, it has Delena! Read, review, etc. I will have Katherine join the group in the next chapter, probably. I am sorry if this is so short, but if I had extended the chapter with what happens next, it would have been WAY too long. Anywho... Enjoy! :)**_

Chapter VI:

_i_

He swaggered into the Blue Moon Café feeling older than he was—which was saying a lot, since he was somewhere in the area of two hundred years old. He was dressed all in black—from the tips of his hair to the ends of his boot-clad toes. With hunching shoulders, limp arms, and a stiff neck, he looked a little worse-for-wear and was definitely in the mood for a drink. It wasn't any physical ailment that had him so drained, however. It was his emotional state. And if Damon was drained, then, damn it all, he'd have to drink himself back up.

Although this was probably the some-hundredth time he'd come, he knew that in the end he'd never stop hoping that maybe she'd actually be there. As he sat on the stool, he let his head drop into his hands, allowing his fingers to run through his silken onyx hair. When they reached his neck, he pulled them back up to tousle the perfect way in which the strands fell. Damon's hair was a piece of art…Scratch that—_Damon _was a piece of art. Even with his hair looking like a disheveled mess and his very limbs expressing his emotional exhaustion, he was still beyond handsome. To say that he looked like a male Calvin Klein model would be an understatement, an insult. He was the image of a Greek god…wearing a leather jacket and aviator glasses.

The bartender was male, Damon noted. He was glad. If one more woman hit on him today, he'd probably rip her head off—literally. There was a time when Damon would have gladly taken advantage of each and every floozy that threw herself his way—granted, he would have expected it. But, as of late, every time he thought of being with a woman he felt sick to his stomach. It was horrendous.

He was still just as much of a monster as he used to be; without his angel, he seemed to feel no remorse for spilling the blood of innocents. On the other hand, he wouldn't kill them as often as he had done before he'd met her. When his victim would begin to whimper her last breaths, he would suddenly imagine _her_ eyes staring upon him with horror. Even when she wasn't there, she was filling him with feelings of condemnation; she was still haunting him with her expectations. Not that he necessarily disliked that. In fact, if he had ceased to remember those things she'd felt about him, he'd likely lose the will to live. He needed to remember that she had felt _something_ for him once…even if it meant remembering that she'd hated him. Even if he had to recall how disgusted she had been at the thought of him.

The bartender walked up and, with a sidewise smirk: "What'll it be, honey?" His eyes went up and down Damon's frame, looking disappointed that the counter obstructed a full view. Damon internally groaned. _At least it isn't a woman_, he thought bitterly.

He heard the door open and close behind him as he ordered bourbon and tequila shots. The bartender nodded.

Then, Damon felt a shock trail through his body. His ears became alert. As the door began to swing shut, he heard something from outside. Something far too familiar. _That heartbeat_.

He spun around in his seat to stare out the window, frantically searching for the source of the beautiful little thrum that had electrocuted him. His eyes settled on a slender figure looking up and down the street confusedly, intermittently looking down at a slip of paper between her fingers. Her copper-black hair was shining in the sunlight and flowing around her frame in the wind. She was wearing black-and-white Converse tennis-shoes, a purple button-up sweater, and dark jeans. As her head looked around to the other side of the street, Damon's undead heart stood still, attentive as a watchdog that had caught a scent. Her eyes were round and large. Her nose was petite. Her chin was subtly sharp. Her hair swept past to her waist. Her lips…_her lips_, Damon's heart flipped. Then, her eyes widened as she seemed to see what she was looking for, strolling to a dilapidated building about half a block away. She seemed to pause and inhale a deep breath of courage before gently turning the knob.

_ii_

Elena turned the knob. _That's strange,_ she thought. It wouldn't budge. She tried again, this time groaning angrily when it wouldn't submit. Anchoring her foot to the sidewalk, she thrust her hip against the side of the wooden door, but it only made a cracking noise that seemed to hint that she had better luck breaking through the deteriorating planks than actually getting it to open. Huffing with a flustered "argh!", she turned to walk around the building, wondering why the hell a millennia-or-so-old vampire would feel the need to meet her in an abandoned warehouse. _Shouldn't he have picked up some cash along the way? He couldn't have invited me to a nice hotel room to kill me in?_ she grimaced with the snarky mental note. Walking through a little alleyway, she found a window on the side of the building. It was up the fire escape. She frowned. Elena wasn't exactly fond of climbing up fire escapes on rickety metal ladders. Nevertheless, she sighed, resigning herself to the fact that she'd have to suck it up.

Almost seven hours and four hundred fifty miles ago, Elena had been in Virginia, slipping out of her house in the wee hours of the morning. Now, it was almost eleven in the morning and she was recklessly (and probably illegally) climbing into a mysterious building in a tiny town in another state. Why? Because Elena's personal dream-torturer felt the ridiculous need to summon her to Georgia. Georgia, of all places. What the hell was in Georgia?! Elena was cranky and probably should have taken a nap before going to her destination, but she couldn't satiate her curiosity. She _needed_ to see what awaited her—even if that meant her own death.

She slammed into the window with her clothed elbow, but the glass wouldn't break. She groaned. _What, the door gives but the damn window decides to play tough-guy?_ She breathed. _What now?_ Then, she started to chuckle. _Did you try opening it, Elena?_ she mocked herself. She leaned down, careful not to disturb the rusting metal that she was standing upon, and pulled the window up. It complied without so much as a squeak. She smiled. _Finally, things are going my way._

_iii_

Damon stood, leaning against the metal support inside the warehouse, a Greek god complete with modern Corinthian columns. He was half-amused, half-disturbed, watching behind a little wall as she struggled to get through the little window. _Why didn't she just use the door? _"I gave her a key...," he murmured. As she got stuck, with half her body hanging outside and her backside hanging within, Damon chuckled. Her legs stretched downward, searching blindly for a foothold with her toes, but failing. With a frustrated yet affectionate eye-roll, he pushed himself off the metal support and straightened his jacket. _Ever the knight-errant._

_iv_

Elena clutched to the sides of the window, praying that when she let go her feet would touch solid ground rather than allow her to fall through nothingness. _Who would put a fire escape at the second floor without a second-floor, right?_ she thought hopefully. Something told her that the building was probably unfinished, however, and might not have steps on the other side—in which case, she would fall about fifteen feet and break her legs. She swallowed, trying to dismiss the frightening possibility. She wondered at her own idiocy. _Why didn't you look inside before you decided to get in?!_ Frankly, it was too late. She tried to boost herself back inside, but failed miserably. It was down or…down. She winced. _Idiot._

_v_

Damon began to swagger over to the pair of impossibly long legs dangling from the window. After a moment of admiration, he suddenly realized that if those self-same legs were to swing _just_ _the wrong way_…then she wouldn't land on the metal structure beneath her. She was inches away from slipping out of the window and falling to the concrete flooring. As her arms pushed her out entirely, his heart clenched. _She won't make it_. Using vamp-speed, he fled to her falling body.

_vi_

Elena screamed when she saw the metal structure to her left sweep past her descending view. She was plummeting at a horrifically quick pace, yet she felt as if she was falling through water. The air was being dragged out of her lungs and she found that she couldn't scream anymore. She closed her eyes tight as they watered, sending up a quick prayer that God spare her spine. _At the very least, don't let me be paralyzed…_

Instead of feeling the hard concrete, however, she felt her back sink into something soft and warm. Elena panicked. She had once read an article in a _Seventeen _magazine of a girl who was paralyzed; she had felt as if her back hit something soft, then suddenly she couldn't move. Elena choked on the thought.

_I'm paralyzed. I'm paralyzed. I'm paralyzed_, her brain repeated like a morbid mantra. She crouched into a little ball, not realizing that if she could still _move_, then she most certainly was _not_ paralyzed. She began to cry hysterically, clutching at what felt like…leather?

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_**Yay! I know there wasn't any Damon/Elena interaction in this chapter, but I thought this was a good cut-off for the next chapter. I hope you enjoyed it... Leave reviews, PM, and make suggestions! :D**_


	7. Chapter VII: Irony Abounds

_**Note from the author to the reader: I don't own the Vampire Diaries... Also, here's chapter seven! I hope ya'll like it-I am pretty proud of how it turned out. I didn't feel that I delved into their emotions or thoughts enough, however, so I might go back and make it a little more angsty later But for now this is it. As always, I'd love for you to review and if you have any recommendations, I will take them willingly and gladly. Enjoy and God bless! :D**_

_**Slight update: I just realized that there were some minor grammatical errors made in this chapter that I felt I should fix. So, if you've already read this chapter, don't bother to re-read it because the content has remained essentially the same.**_

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_Chapter VII:_

_i_

Damon stared down at the beautiful mess in his arms. She was shaking, huddled into fetal position, her heart vibrating in anxiety and dread. He was worried about her mental state, yet he couldn't help but smile. He hadn't seen her in…so very long. It almost seemed like some lovely dream that, any moment, he would be reluctantly dragged out of. Her shoulders and copper-black hair were strewn over one of his forearms and her knees hung over the other. She'd tucked her head into his chest and was breathing heavily…he could feel her bosom undulating against his muscles as she struggled to calm herself. Yes, he was smiling; he was positively _grinning._ Her delicate fingers were latched to his jacket, her head snuggling even closer. She was trying to comfort herself in his arms, letting her forehead rest against his beating, dead heart. He could have sworn he felt her lips brush inadvertently against the hollow of his neck.

It was interesting how, only moments before, he had been ready to maybe-not-so-figuratively bite her head off for being so ridiculously reckless. Now, he felt himself melting and wishing that she would do something this stupid every day, if only he could be there to catch her. He breathed in her hair. Elena's hair didn't smell like jasmine or honeysuckle or roses…Elena's hair smelt like Elena. Any hair-conditioner's unworthy scent would be consumed by the sweet, gentle fragrance of Elena's own scalp. Nothing could do her justice but her own living, breathing beauty. No makeup could accent her features properly, perfume insulted her very existence. Or so thought Damon…_Clothing doesn't suitably accentuate her curves,_ he though t innocently. Then, not so innocently: _She shouldn't wear clothing, then._ Damon smirked at his own private dirty joke.

After a few moments, Elena gently pulled her head up to look at her savior's face. He gave her a somewhat sleazy sidewise grin. "_Hello._"

_ii_

She'd never heard anyone say such a benign word with so much alternate meaning…at least, if she had, she couldn't remember it. He made it sound like he was saying a dirty word, something shameful yet flattering. Elena blushed and pushed herself harshly out of his arms, apparently giving him a severe shock.

She turned away from him to quickly adjust her shirt, which was allowing her undergarments to peek out ever-so-slightly. Tucking her hair behind one ear, she looked over to this stranger and tried to say something, but her voice wouldn't come out. Smiling a little, she cleared her throat.

"Thank you," she croaked out, the last word cracking. He smirked again and did something funky with his eyebrows. Elena raised one of her own. _Is this guy flirting with me?_

"Um…," she allowed herself a panoramic view of her surroundings before turning back to the handsome creature leering at her, "What—what exactly _is_ this place?" She wondered if she should ask this guy if he knew where to find a blue-eyed man, but thought better of it, realizing how ludicrous the question might sound. Squinting, she tried to look at his eyes, but they were being shielded by aviator glasses that were reflecting the sun into her own vision. To be frank, Elena was disoriented and distraught from her fall (and supposed brush with paralysis). She could barely stand up straight, let alone _think_ straight.

The man shrugged, the leather clinging to his shoulders as if they were being strained by the muscles beneath them. "It is an abandoned warehouse. How much more cliché can you get, right?" he chuckled. He seemed to suddenly become serious, taking off his sunglasses as he glanced down at his toes. His hair fell over his eyes. _Why does he seem familiar_, Elena asked herself. That curious voice in the back of her head was shouting something to her about it being right in front of her eyes, but her thoughts were interrupted by the stranger's own voice.

"Why did you come here?" he whispered, sounding strangely anxious. This was quite a shift from the smugly flirtatious attitude he'd had on display only a second ago. His shoulders hunched unexpectedly. Bringing his hand up to his face, he let his palm run over his features as if he were fatigued, weary of this situation.

Then, he looked up at her. They were only a yard or two in distance and the hue of his irises were easily visible. Her dark-amber eyes locked with the cerulean orbs across from her, begging for her adoration.

No, not quite cerulean. Crystalline-blue. Elena froze. _Klaus._

Elena's breath hitched on its way up her airway, preventing her from screaming as she had intended. She choked for a moment before the shriek came out, high pitched and potentially glass-shattering. Her eyes went wide and she stumbled backwards, tripping over a metal pole lying on its side.

Klaus sped to her, catching her by her waist and glaring into her eyes. Intimately. The scream stopped abruptly and she found herself relaxing in his grip. The look in his eyes was broken, significantly hurt. She couldn't understand what was going on—he looked as if he…_loved_ her.

Minutes passed.

It was silent. Her scream had ceased to echo off the walls of the huge structure and Klaus was still clutching to her waist for dear life, as if her existence were the only thing keeping him alive. The crystalline eyes were glossy with unshed tears and her chest was making knots of her heartstrings, from either guilt or something else. She trusted this man; this man who had apparently killed her had, in the expanse of less than five minutes (or seven months) become the only individual she felt she could trust.

Before Elena realized what she was doing—her fingers had wound themselves into his onyx-felt hair and she had thrown her other arm around his neck. He seemed to gasp from shock as a drop of sorrow left his eye and landed on her cheek. He opened his mouth to say something (probably "What are you doing?" or something to that extent), but he didn't get the chance. Elena kissed him.

_iii_

"How the hell is this _my _fault?! What was I supposed to do, put a lock on her f*ing window?" Alaric was shouting. Caroline lifted her hand to slap him at his particularly filthy language but restrained herself with an under-breath countdown from ten. Bonnie was glaring from across the room with her grimoire in hand, having momentarily paused in her search for a location spell. Jeremy was sitting on the sofa, looking at his hands as if they were the cause of this whole mess. And Tyler—well, Tyler was pacing the room like a watchdog. Irony abounds.

"You could have woken up when you heard the _car start!"_ Caroline charged. Alaric fumed at the insinuation.

"I _did_ wake up! And I called you twelve times! Do you think maybe a girl with super-hearing could pick up the damn phone in the middle of the night, or is that so hard for you to do?" he glared angrily. Caroline's pink lips spread to reveal her teeth as webs of veins trailed along her cheekbones from her eyes. She made a sound akin to a hiss. _Did she just f*ing _snarl_ at me?_ Alaric thought in disbelief.

As Alaric was beginning to reach into his jacket pocket for a vervain dart, Bonnie gasped. This caught everyone's attention.

"I found a location spell!" Again, with the irony.

"Well? What do you need?" Jeremy was up in an instant, ready as a golden retriever to fetch her some candles and herbs. Instead, Bonnie's eyebrows knit together and she groaned.

"What is it? What do you need?" Everyone seemed to ask at once.

The words left Bonnie's lips with more aggravation than she had intended. It was a growl of bitter, barely-contained rage: "She needs to want to be found."

_vi_

Damon momentarily let the pain in his stomach subside. Her lips were healing him slowly…but there was something wrong. Aside from the scream, she wasn't kissing him like she should have been. This was wary, experimental. Elena had been kissed by him before—he had forced himself on her, granted, but she should know better than to treat this as if it were the first time their lips had met. Growling in frustration, he pulled himself away from her. It took all his self-control to tear himself from her arms. He expected her to look hurt, but instead she looked half-confused. He couldn't seem to pinpoint what the other emotion was, but it wasn't hurt.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" His voice, usually like velvet, had the tone of a death-threat hidden in it.

She swallowed and her heartbeat picked up. She was afraid again. Feeling slightly guilty, he breathed and, in a gentle voice, "Elena, what's going on?"

She had a peculiar look on her face and he caught the strange beat of her cardiac. She was about to lie. He fought the urge to roll his eyes.

"I…wanted to see you…" Damon was confused. That wasn't the lie. The lie was still coming. "…_Klaus."_ The last word was uncertain; that was the lie. She had just called him Klaus and apparently didn't know his real name. Damon's mouth hung open. _Are you kidding me?_

He swallowed down the bile threatening to travel up his esophagus. She had just called him Klaus. _She called me _Klaus. _She just called me the guy who tried—no, who _did_ kill her. Is she serious?_ He glanced over at her. She was definitely serious.

Damon began to pace. His hands ran through his hair. A long list of explicatives stormed through his mind_. _With the last curse in the line of twelve, he grabbed his glasses from off his shirt collar and threw them across the room. _She was f*ing compelled!_ _She finally kisses me of her own free will and she f*ing thought I was somebody else—She thought I was KLAUS!_

He leaned over and tried to breathe the pain away. Who the hell would be so cruel?

"You were compelled," he stated through clenched teeth.

"H…how did you know?" she hesitated.

"Because," he declared as he stood back up to face her, "My name is Damon."

She looked thoughtful. "Damon…," she murmured slowly. Then, in a barely-audible whisper: "Are—are we in love?"

* * *

_**There is way more to this story than just the romantic aspect, by the way. I have a whole interesting plot in mind that is yet to come. It involves Katherine...! She is definitely my favorite villian... Anywho, until then: Read, review, and PM! :)**_


	8. Chapter VIII: Second Chances

**_Dear Readers,_**

**_Here's chapter eight!_**

* * *

_Chapter VIII:_

_i_

The interesting thing about vampires is not merely that they live forever. Granted, that is one interesting attribute about such a creature, since it is not observed in any other living being. Then again, vampires aren't exactly "alive", are they? The disease of sorts that allows them to break the most basic and certain laws of nature aren't always blessings; they come with curses, as well. So, indeed, the Latin sayings of _memento mori _and _nascentes morimur_ ("Remember that you must die" and "From the moment of birth, we all begin to die") are quite erroneous in relation to creatures of the night. However, to say that vampirism is a fountain of youth is also a lie. The term "Fountain of Youth" denotes a certain beauty, the suggestion of idealism, to live forever without drawbacks or penalty in return. With vampirism, this is surely not the case. Vampirism is a curse far more than it is a miracle. To wish to feed on those you once called friends, family. To have the power to kill dozens within moments yet lack the control to restrain such urges. To need the life-force of others in order to preserve your own existence—to terrorize society as a monster lest you yourself should perish… This is not a miracle. No, it is undoubtedly a curse.

And no one perhaps understood this fact more than Damon Salvatore. There, standing in front of the only woman for whom he ever truly felt love while hearing her frightened heartbeat, he knew that it was a curse. It was a curse to hear every emotion's rhythm keep an offbeat tempo through her chest. It was a curse to know that this Elena, this Elena with no recollection of anything they had ever shared, couldn't see past what he was. She was trying…she had kissed him, even knowing what he was. But, due to the powers of another vampire, she had also believed him to be the bastard who had sucked her dry as a sacrifice in a sick ritual. No, Damon couldn't win. He was certain it was his punishment for being such a hellion, such a savage leech, that he would be tortured so by the only pure emotion he had felt in over a hundred and fifty years. The only pure emotion he'd felt in his entire life, actually.

Damon cursed to himself and launched his glasses at the wall. If he weren't aware of Elena's presence, he might have thrown one of the metal pipes, but he didn't want to frighten her anymore than she already was. Damon swallowed the dryness in his throat and rubbed at his temples. Pinching the bridge of her nose, he informed her that his name was Damon. Without looking up, he heard her murmur something.

Perhaps vampirism wasn't such a curse in this instance. With his heightened hearing he could have sworn she asked if they were in love.

_She said—what?_ Damon thought. He raised his head from off his hand and stared at her blankly, his jaw loosening and hanging open by its hinges. She blinked at him.

He cleared his throat and took a deep, unnecessary breath. "Are—are we _what?_"

She looked embarrassed and her cheeks flushed a little. She looked down to avoid his gaze.

"Um…nothing. Nevermind."

"_No…_," Damon said slowly. He rushed to stand in front of her, giving her a shock. He stared down into her eyes, forcing her to look at him. "What did you say?" He wasn't going to let this go.

However, instead of answering him, something seemed to occur to her and she suddenly bolted for the door. Damon stood, staring at the place where she had been a moment ago, as if a cloud of dust were left in her wake; Wile E. Coyote met by the absence of his Roadrunner. _What now?_ he grumbled internally.

Elena was pulling at the door with all her might, trying desperately to get it open while her heartbeat hammered away.

"Did you try the lock?" Damon's sarcastic voice cut through the sounds of her beating on the wood and struggling with the doorknob. She stopped and groaned at her own idiocy.

"Out of curiosity, before you rush out on me after kissing me and asking if we're in love…Why exactly are you choosing to run away _now? _I would think you'd have steered clear of me when you thought I was the guy who killed you, not when you found out I was somebody else," his voice was thick with annoyance, but he was trying to appear unaffected by her ambivalent actions.

She sighed. "Don't talk to me, Damon. I'm tired of being compelled. Just—stay quiet!" She tried to budge the door, but even with the lock undone, it seemed to be stuck. Damon was a little pleased, though. She had said his name as if she'd said it a thousand times; there was familiarity there.

On the other hand, why did she think he was going to compel her? He wasn't looking her in the eyes…_Wait. Are you serious?_ he thought humorlessly.

"You…you don't know how compulsion _works_, do you?" Elena stopped, her back still turned to him.

Sounding annoyed at her own ignorance: "No."

Damon chuckled and began to laugh uncontrollably. Elena turned around to face him, a look of disapproval and aggravation written across her features. "What?"

Damon shook his head and calmed his laughter. He strolled over to her and gave her a quick, condescending smirk. "Oh, Elena, Elena… someone has to be looking you in the eyes when they compel you. I can't just say something to compel without looking into your eyes…You know, unless it is 'follow-up compulsion'."

"Follow-up compulsion?" She raised an eyebrow. This didn't sound very convincing. Damon scratched his head. _How do I explain this?_

"Okay, so say I look you in the eyes and say: 'Eat a piece of chocolate.' Well, assuming you've finished the piece of chocolate, if I use my authoritarian voice without looking you in the eyes, I can sort of add-on to the original compulsion by saying: 'Oh, and eat that other piece, too.' Get it?"

Elena thought a moment before nodding slowly. She swallowed. "So…You're not trying to compel me?" She was doing her best to avoid his eyes. He smiled gently.

"No, Elena, I have no intention of compelling you."

At first she seemed relieved. Then, a moment later, a sparkle seemed to enter her eye.

"Damon…," she began. He raised his eyebrows in answer. "Are you sure you don't want to compel me?"

_ii_

"Bonnie, please! Tell me that there's something else in that big, old book of yours!" Jeremy was practically pleading on his knees. He was on the edge of the couch, holding Bonnie's hand. He was looking up at her face as she stood with a grimoire tucked under her arm. Bonnie had dark skin, but there were bags under her eyes that stood out from her complexion; she looked like she had been punched. In actuality, she had only had two hours of sleep last night and had been sifting through the spells of her grimoires for seven hours straight.

Alaric sighed from the kitchen. He was trying to make sandwiches for the people (and creatures) in his (goddaughter's) house, but Elena was always the preparing meals. He couldn't seem to even find the toaster.

Even Caroline seemed to have lost her spunk. She lay sprawled over one side of the couch, rubbing her forehead with her manicured fingers. Tyler sat under her legs, studying her denim-clad shins tiredly.

"No, Jer. I'm sorry. She has to want to be found." Bonnie was defeated. Bonnie was _never_ defeated, but it was certainly looking as if her winning streak had come to an end. Or had it?

Out of the blue, Bonnie dropped Jeremy's hand, a new life in her eyes. She sped over to the counter and grabbed a particularly red and ancient-looking grimoire.

Caroline leaned over the couch to look and Alaric stopped spreading the mayonnaise. No one dared ask what she was doing; they were afraid to hope.

Flipping through each page quickly, she went back and forth as if she couldn't remember which page it was on. Finally, she arrived at her desired destination. Running her finger down the aged parchment, her finger paused on some calligraphic Latin-or-something wording. Narrowing her eyes as she read it carefully, everyone held in their breath.

"Ah-ha!" she shouted her expression of triumph.

She turned on her heel to face the numerous pairs of eyes looking at her desperately.

"I know how to find her."

_iii_

"Wait—what? I thought you were afraid of me compelling you?" Damon declared.

"No, I was afraid you'd try to take away my memory," Elena began, "I would _love_ it, though if you'd return it!"

Damon stared at her, trying not to show the gears turning in his head. _If I return her memory, she'll remember everything…she'll remember that I once killed her brother without knowing he would come back to life, that I had numerously threatened to kill her…She would remember that she was in love with my brother._ A chill ran up Damon's spine. No, this won't do. _This could help her to see what she's felt all along…what I have known with each time her heart reacted to my presence. Elena could realize that she loves me…she's already beginning to realize it. This could be a second chance._ Damon seemed to consider. He knew it was wrong. He knew it was manipulative. He knew that it would probably bite him in the ass later on. It was a breach of her trust… And he didn't care.

"I drink animal blood. Can't help ya', kid."

Elena's face fell. "Damn it!" she kicked the door one last time. "Why is it that _every vampire I know_ decides to become a vegetarian in my time of need!?"

Damon chuckled a little. "So, I take it you asked Barbie?" She crossed her arms.

"Why does everyone call her that?" She was in a foul mood. _Better not offend her bestie_, he considered.

"Because she's so pretty," Damon lied. There was no honesty in his voice and Elena rolled her eyes.

She looked up at his helplessly. "Damon…?" He stared back.

"Yes, Elena?" Mockery.

"Will you help me find someone to return my memories? Like, um—that girl that looks like me?"

Damon groaned. "Katherine?" Acid on his tongue.

"Yeah, her! Do you think she'd help?" Even Elena looked doubtful.

The leather shoulders shrugged. _No way_, he thought. "Sure. I'll try to track her down. Until then, it looks like you need some sleep…"

She paused. "You'll help me remember, won't you?" she whispered. Damon lost himself in her dark-amber eyes.

"Yes, Elena. I will help you remember."

_Elena_, he told her mentally, _This time there won't be any distractions. No more evil-Damon, no more Saint Stephan. Just you and me. I don't have to compel you to make you feel it; you love me already. I just need to help you see it._

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**_POSTSCRIPT FROM THE AUTHORESS: Keep up the reviews! I read every last one of them with glee. Also, about the whole "follow-up compulsion" thing: I noticed in episode 3x06 that Klaus could compel some kids to do things without looking them in the eyes as long as he had compelled them with his eyes a few moments before. So, I figured that was a part of the mythology of the show and that it should be mentioned when explaining how compulsion works._**


	9. Chapter IX: Speak of the Devil

**_Note from the Authoress: I am sorry for having been gone so long, but I've been really busy. For being absent for such a (comparatively) long period of time (in relation to the average updating of my other chapters), I have made this chapter extra-long. :) I hope ya'll like it! _**

_Chapter IX:_

_i_

The dark hotel room was suddenly flooded by light as Elena opened the door and walked in. Damon followed close behind, carrying her bag. She laid her purse on the seat next to the doorway and turned on the light as he shut the door.

Since Elena's brush with death, freak-out, and multiple apparently inappropriate comments, she had done her best to avoid both conversation and eye-contact with her dark, mysterious stranger/old friend. He had observed her silence and respected it, albeit reluctantly. His brain had been squealing with delight and curiosity since the moment her absurd question had left her lips and he wasn't so thrilled at the notion of dropping the subject. However, his main interest at this point was Elena's sense of safety; grilling her on something so intimate didn't exactly facilitate that interest.

Elena was fatigued. She sat at the edge of her single-bed (Damon had been a gentleman and rented his own room). Her brain was on overdrive.

"How did we meet?" she asked. They had been silent since they left the warehouse. They'd driven in their separate cars, then walked in silence to the rooms that Damon had rented. It had been half-an-hour of silence. Despite the thoughts each of them were having (thoughts which seemed to scream so loudly that each person was certain the other individual had heard them), no one had dared speak. And this sentence, considering the obscure train of thought Damon was having—which included kicking himself for renting two rooms—threw him off a bit.

"Uh…my brother." He regretted his answer the moment it left his lips. _Why the hell did you even mention him!?_

"You have a brother?" She looked up at him with wide, inquiring eyes. Damon stared at his feet and grunted. _Why the hell not? Already screwed it up, as it is._

"Yeah…You know, sandy hair? Green eyes?" Damon motioned to his head and widened his eyes in turn, pantomiming his description with a sardonic exasperation.

Elena's jaw dropped and she seemed to become catatonic. Her body tensed. Her heartbeat steadily picked up to a rapid flurry as she stared blankly at the white wall…

_Green eyes turning black. Veins. Teeth. Blood. Veins. Teeth. Blood. Pathetic. Veins. Teeth…_

"ELENA!" Damon was shaking her, shouting her name for the fifth time. She shook her head, grabbing onto his forearm to steady her vertigo and fluctuating physical stability. She was hyperventilating. Then, tears streamed from her eyes as if a dam had broken. A sound that resembled a gargle—a drowning gasp—escaped her throat and she pulled Damon onto her.

Elena was weeping, a chaotic heap on Damon's chest. And, although Damon was worried for the reason behind this strange attack, he was also pleased—not merely by the fact that it had been triggered by the mention of his brother. No, Damon chastised himself for taking a sick pleasure in the fact that he was holding Elena in his arms on a hotel-room bed.

_ii_

"Hair!" –"Got it!" –"Shirt?" –"Coming!" –"Stephan's necklace?" –"I'm looking for it—wait! Found it!" Jeremy pulled Elena's necklace out from behind the television (apparently one of the numerous hiding places for Elena/Stephan memorabilia).

Everyone was scrambling, obeying each order that Bonnie shouted. She needed Elena's hair, a personal possession, and something that connected her to the one she was with (the necklace, in this case). It had been agreed upon that Elena must be trying to find Stephan, and if she was with him (or intent upon finding him), then her search would aid them in theirs. Her focus upon Stephan could be pin-pointed with witchcraft and used to find her. It was an ingenious loophole that Bonnie had devised by combining three separate spells.

"Okay—so the last thing I need…" Bonnie flipped through the pages and stopped on one that was bookmarked. To Alaric: "Go get me a likeness of him."

Alaric raised an eyebrow. "You want me to find a voodoo doll of Stephan?"

"No…," Bonnie chuckled. "Maybe a century ago they would have used a voodoo doll. Today we can just use a photograph." Alaric grinned with relief. A picture of Stephan. They had one of those.

Everyone met in the kitchen. Bonnie had a pot on the stove and was adding herbs to it from spice shakers.

"What, no cauldron and fresh-picked plants?" Caroline quipped.

Bonnie cocked her head to the side as she turned to Caroline. She smirked sarcastically and raised her eyebrows in mock-graciousness. "No, Caroline, today we have pots and pans. Would you prefer I use the crockpot to make your experience more authentic?" Caroline opened her mouth to make a snarky witticism-comeback, but was interrupted in the nick of time.

"_Guys…_," Alaric moaned wearily from the next room. Every eye turned to the living-room walk-way as he stepped in. He was looking down at what resembled a photo.

"What?" Bonnie's voice was on edge.

Alaric raised his eyes from the slick-inked print. "Didn't Elena say she was having dreams of a _blue-eyed man?_"

"Yes…and?" Alaric held the photo up in defeat. Tyler gasped as Jeremy and Bonnie squinted, unequipped with supernatural precision of sight. Once they realized what they were looking at, however, they each tensed in turn. Stephan had green eyes.

Caroline gawked. "Are you f*ing kidding me? We forgot Stephan had green eyes?!" She was practically yelling.

Jeremy's head fell into one hand as he shrugged. "I guess we must have just assumed that's who she was dreaming about and forgot to rethink it. We never really had any reason to…I mean, I knew Stephan had _light-colored eyes_, so I just figured…" He trailed off.

"Well if she isn't looking for Stephan, then who the hell _is_ she looking f—" Alaric choked on his own words as realization hit him. He looked around the kitchen with an exasperated, knowing frown.

At first no one seemed to catch the look. Then, it hit them. Bonnie's head rolled back to look at the ceiling in a palpable annoyance. Caroline groaned and began to rub her temples. And Jeremy turned around to bang his fist on the island.

"Why didn't we think of it before?" Tyler whined, wincing. Everyone was thinking the same thing:

_Damon._

_iii_

"Yes?" Damon answered, turning to the beautiful woman lying in his arms.

"I'm sorry I freaked out," she murmured. She began to sit up, but Damon shushed her, pulling her back to his chest. She smiled, thinking it was a sweet gesture of comfort. In reality, he was desperate to hold her longer.

"Don't be sorry…What happened, though?"

Elena closed her eyes and clutched to his Armani button-up. "Nothing—I just…Please don't mention him again." As she said "him", her voice trembled. She swallowed hard. Damon nodded. He should have felt more joy at the fact that she apparently hated his brother, but the joy was dampened significantly by the reality that he couldn't bear to see her so distraught. In fact, it suddenly occurred to him that the only reason he had borne her adoration of his brother for so long was due to his intense desire to see her happy. Not just because he was trying to avoid the repetition of history, not merely for the fact that he would feel guilty for stealing his brother's girl—no, Damon didn't bear the duplicity of his situation out of mere altruism; he was far too selfish to be fueled by what little good Elena had revived in him. No, he was able to stand the torment because her happiness gave him the strength to stand anything. It was like a drug.

And this—this was like persecution. Her depression, her frown, was Damon's agony. Yes, if Elena's happiness was Damon's drug than surely her sadness was a bad trip. Not that Damon could speak from experience—aside from alcohol, he'd never felt the need to take popular substances during the 1960's, as so many other people had. To be honest, he was afraid that he would hallucinate about Katherine burning or Katherine being staked or Katherine kissing Stephan—or worse: Katherine _under_ Stephan. That, of course, was back when he thought he was in love with the bitch. Boy, had things changed since then. Now he was guiltily in love with her doppelgänger. _Idiot._

Unlike a hundred-fifty years ago, Damon now knew what love was. He was looking down at it. Elena was everything he wanted and everything he wanted to be. She was good, pure, lovely. Yes, she was the personification of love—a human equivalent to Corinthians 13:4-8. And, for all that he felt for her, everything she felt was doubled in him. If she was happy, he was exuberant. If she was sad, he was suicidal. If she was angry…then Damon was murderous. In fact, if there was ever a person to blame for Elena's unhappiness, then Damon was, more oft than not, homicidally insane. _That _was how much he loved her. He loved her enough to take revenge for her even in the knowledge that she'd hate him for it. He loved her enough to do the unthinkable to protect her. It was a solid love. It wasn't Stephan's watered-down "I'll let her make her own decisions and get herself killed because she's an insufferable martyr" kind of love. No, Damon's love was an "I'll listen to her moan in my brother's arms every night and I'll force my blood down her throat to ensure her survival" kind of love. People would say Damon felt a selfish love for Elena. What a ludicrous notion. How could they call this selfish? _Then again,_ Damon reminded himself with a pang of self-condemnation, _you aren't giving her back her memory. _Damon wasn't the kind of person to candy-coat the truth or even let _himself_ off the hook; he was a blunt, blatantly honest asshole whose brutal brand of the truth bordered on cruelty—scratch that—Damon's honesty _was_ cruelty.

Even now, he was forcing himself to acknowledge that what he was doing was, without a doubt, perhaps _the most_ selfish thing he had ever done, with the obvious exception of forcing his blood down Elena's throat. Even that, however, he had done with her eventual happiness in mind. In that moment—the moment his wrist had met her lips—he had known that he was forfeiting any chance of her loving him to guarantee that she would survive the ritual. All that had, thankfully, become moot, however—thanks to John Gilbert (_at least the bastard did _something _right_).

This, though, _was_ selfish. There was no thought of Elena's happiness in this act (or lack thereof). It was for Damon's happiness, with a self-seeking disregard for Elena's desire or for his brother's happiness. _Speaking of which, where is Saint Stephan?_ Damon thought for the thousandth time. But the last thing he wanted to think about at this moment was his guilt or his girl's guy (irony).

Damon revived himself from his brown study and let himself drown in Elena's wide, dark-amber eyes. Again, he reminded himself that they were the color of aged liquor. And again, he felt himself getting drunk. On the other side, she always looked so innocent. Adorable, really. He pondered momentarily, wondering if maybe that look was deceptive. She was innocent; he knew that. But, as his thoughts wandered south, he almost smirked at the concept of Elena being…_bold_.

There was suddenly three hard knocks at the door. Damon furrowed his eyebrows and Elena mirrored him. They both stole a glance at the door. Damon could hear a foot tapping on the other side._ Just in the nick of time…_ Damon sighed as he looked down at the embodiment of perfection, snuggled just where he wanted her. He scowled. She was getting up. _Why is there always an interruption? Who the hell is so desperate to screw with my happiness?_

Then, as if in answer, a voice penetrated the wall:

"Well, are you two going to just lie there, or are you going to let me in?"

_Speak of the Devil. _Damon growled, but Elena's face brightened up like a light-bulb.

"It's rude to leave me out here, you know," her voice floated in. Elena jumped from the bed as Damon cursed, too quietly for Elena to hear. She unlocked the door and flung it open.

Elena surveyed the figure with her gaze, like observing a more fashionable mirror-image. The mock-reflection beamed smugly over Elena's shoulder at Damon, in a half-supine position on the bed. She was apparently glorying in the timing of her interruption.

_F*k, _he thought. _And the Ice Bitch returns._

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**_Thank you for all your reviews, favorites, and follows! I am really proud of this fic so far and am even happier that so many of you are enjoying it with me. Also, I apologize if I ranted about Damon's love for too long, but I have a lot to say about it. Whenever I watch the show, I hate how people make it out as if he is selfish with her. As you can see from my long monologue on the subject, I just don't see Damon as being the "selfish-love" type. And, to "the original bitch": You asked, I wrote! Katherine will be in the rest of the story. :)_**

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**_Note: I am returning! I haven't been around for a while, a transgression for which I apologize... ;)_**

**_In any event, I intend to write the next chapter and post it by next week at the latest. :D_**


	10. Chapter X: Creepy Things Vampires Do

_**Note by the Authoress: I am SO SORRY. I have some very good excuses for my long hiatus, but they all end with "busy". Basically, I am back! Unfortunately, I won't be able to update every single day (as I had been doing before I took my leave of FanFiction absence). Instead, I will probably be updating once a week at most. But, I am back, and that's what counts! I hope you can still enjoy this story after such a long break. This is a fairly long chapter and I enjoyed writing it, although I will admit that it's not my best. As I get back into the groove, my writing style should return to its original glory. :) Please excuse me if I'm a tad bit rusty.**_

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_i_

"Of course you can…"

"Elena, don't—!"

"…come in!"

_Shit._ She had to let her in. She just _had_ to give her permission. Because that is just such a friggin' _stellar _idea. _Not._

Damon flew from his comfortable place on the lumpy motel bed to stand protectively in front of Elena, eyes interlocking with Katherine's. Katherine mockingly pantomimed, air-knocking at the invisible (and now nonexistent) barrier of the doorway. Seeing as her hand passed through it, she smirked victoriously in Damon's direction. He snarled. Delicately, she touched her toe to the floor on the inside of the room before letting the stiletto heel click down behind it with a cruel finality. Then, with a little less drama, she dragged the other foot into the room, dropping one knee into _contrapposto_ position, hands on hips, lips crooked.

It was a gesture of contempt, like flicking her thumb from her teeth in Damon's face. Why? Katherine was quietly hanging it over his head. Katherine knew _exactly_ what was going on here.

Elena obviously didn't remember how many times Katherine had screwed with her life. If she did, she wouldn't have invited her in—at least not without a good reason. Therefore, Damon hadn't returned her memory. And Katherine could very easily take this opportunity to tell Elena that Damon was _perfectly capable_ of doing so. The hell with Damon's "second chance"; all the bitch had to do was open her mouth, and he would be screwed. Of course Elena would believe her. Katherine was the person who told her she'd had her memory stolen in the first place. Damon was absolutely, without a doubt, SCREWED. He was standing at the mercy of the woman who had caused his death, broken his heart, and wasted over a century of his life. The best he could do would be to beg her silently. He was silently begging the bane of his existence. _NOW,_ he insisted mentally, _now I've hit rock bottom._

Just as her glossed lips parted and he was certain the game was up—

"I need your help."

Damon gawked. _Is she bargaining?_ The look in her eyes seemed to say so. This could only be bad news. What could she want from him?

"What could you want from me?" his voice mimicked his thoughts. She sneered.

"Not _you_," she glared over his shoulder and faked a sickeningly sweet smile. "You, Elena. I need your help."

Elena's heart thudded hopefully in response. "With what? If I do, will you give me back my memory?" Damon winced.

Katherine's eyes darted from Damon's to Elena's. She looked as if she were pondering something. Then, with a false sense of sincere charity:

"Hmm… Why not?"

_Why not? Gee, maybe because you're a heartless bitch?_

"And what exactly do you want from Elena?" He wanted to warn Elena, but any false move now could result in Katherine dropping the bomb on his head.

She didn't look him in the eye. Instead she strolled over to the bed and sat on the edge. Her eyes wandered to the opposite side to linger on the indentations in the comforter, where the two of them had been lying not a few moments ago. She pursed her lips in droll amusement and chuckled lowly—like a cross between a cat purring and a suggestive groan. Rolling her eyes, she crossed her legs and finally stared straight at Damon.

"Her blood. Obviously."

_ii_

"You can't be serious. Not a single hair? Not a single fingernail clipping?" Caroline was getting into that mood again—the "I-have-been-the-director-of-every-school-event-since-my-freshman-year-and-by-hell-or-high-water-if-I-say-jump-you-say-how-high" mood. It was the "If you don't get me Damon's damn DNA, I'm going to drain you of all yours" mood.

And now she was getting her perfect blonde curls frizzy with from all the fumes she was letting off. Standing on the top of the staircase in the boarding house, she looked like she was about to pounce down on Alaric's head.

"Listen, Caroline, I'm sorry, but Damon was a lot cleaner than you gave him credit for. I think he also was a bit paranoid that Bonnie might cast some sort of hex on him," Bonnie shot an angry glance his way, "so I can guarantee you that no matter how much you yell and shout—"

"Oh, I haven't even gotten _started!_"

"—you still won't find Damon's DNA!"

"I think you don't want us to find Elena!"

"Why the hell would I want _that?_"

"Oh, I don't know…," she pretended to cock her head in thought, "Maybe because you want her to give Damon a chance? He was your drinking buddy, after all!"

"Are you crazy? You think I'd risk Elena's safety because I liked to have a drink or two with Damon?"

"I think you're giving up a little early to not have an ulterior motive!" She took a few steps down the staircase to pierce his eyes.

He took a few steps up. "Because rooting for Damon to suck the innocence out of the only family I have left in the world is _such _a feasible ulterior motive," (Does it even need to be said that he was seething with sarcasm?) "Care, I really don't think you do your hair color justice!"

"How about I decide you test out your eternity ring?" she spat.

"Try it and I'll fail your poor excuse for an essay on the Civil War!" They had met on the staircase now and were eye-to-eye. Just as Caroline's undead face began to surface, Jeremy grabbed her shoulders from behind and pulled her back. She could have easily broken his restraints, but she really didn't want to fail history class…

"Everybody just take a beat!" Jeremy shouted. It was kind of odd the way he could summon that maturity just in the nick of time; most people just thought of him as the Emo-druggie kid with a total lack of self-esteem. Nowadays he seemed more and more like a man.

Caroline took a breath and the veins sunk back into her face. Alaric took a step down and looked the other direction.

An exhausted Tyler walked into the room and sat on the floor, which was littered with worn-out black shirts that Damon had apparently not felt the need to pack when he left. On the couch lay all his books, void of so much as a paper-cut blood-drop. There were also his bed-sheets, which everyone insisted somebody else search for DNA—probably afraid of what kind of DNA they might find—although to no avail. The curtains were draped over the staircase banister, having been studied for any trace of the elder Salvatore, but all efforts were in vain. Even the bathroom was bleached clean. The whole house was so void of Damon's physical existence that it wasn't such a stretch to believe he really _was_ afraid that Bonnie might put a spell on him.

Tyler was the one to break the silence.

"Listen guys, I know everybody wants to find Elena. But I think it is time we admitted this particular spell isn't going to help. This place hasn't got so much as a skin particle belonging to Damon Salvatore." His wolf eyes looked up kindly at Bonnie. She sighed.

"What are we supposed to do, then? We've spent the last five hours searching this place, I know. But how could he have lived here for almost a year and not have left anything?"

There was a pause in the air.

"I know this sounds creepy, but could we cast a spell using his scent? It's all over this place, even if there are no physical remnants." Everyone looked at Caroline.

"That did sound a little creepy," Alaric murmured.

"And it wouldn't work," Bonnie sighed again.

The boardinghouse was a mess with strewn clothing, books, quilts, drapes, and even cologne bottles trailing from the upstairs bedroom down into the den. The bourbon tumblers (which were cleaned, unluckily), were all on the kitchen counter, although several had fallen and shattered to the tile floor during the hurried search. Damon's favorite bourbon had no saliva on the lip, even. For all the popular opinions concerning his supposed lack of poise, never once had he had a drink straight from the bottle. If he had…he must have finished off the bottle in one sitting.

So they were stuck, waiting for that spark of genius that would likely never—scratch that. Alaric's eyebrow rose into his sandy hairline. He cleared his throat.

"Speaking of creepy…"

"What?" Caroline groaned in exasperation.

Alaric's eyes stared straight ahead, evidently ignoring Goldie Locks' interjection.

"You know how Damon sometimes did that creepy Edward Cullen thing?"

Jeremy snorted. "Which one? The thing where he would sneak up behind you when you thought you were alone? The thing where he would climb in through Elena's window instead of using the front door?"

"Let it be noted," Caroline suggested, "that Damon was doing that _way_ before Stephenie Meyers was even _born_."

"What about the thing where he'd watch her as she slept or lie down next to her all night long?" Alaric whispered, a little lost in thought.

Bonnie was livid. "You _knew_ that he was doing something so messed up and you didn't _do_ anything?!"

Alaric raised his eyebrow again. "Why is it that everybody pretends Elena wasn't an adult who was perfectly capable of making her own decisions? If she didn't want him there, he wouldn't have _been_ there. Everyone here knows she only _pretended_ to scold him when he did inappropriate things."

Bonnie rose from her seat. "If you feel that way, then why are you even helping us?"

"Because she doesn't _remember_ anything. How can she make decisions if she doesn't know the implications?"

Judgey chewed on her cheek and sat down reluctantly. "So, what's your point? He was a creeper. Not exactly a newsflash."

"Well, he might not have DNA here…but have we tried Elena's room?"

And suddenly Alaric was the hero again.

_iii_

"Go to hell." Damon was getting ready to leap. He didn't care if Katherine told Elena the truth; if she so much as touched a hair on her head, he'd rip Katherine's heart out. And throat. And anything else he could get his fingernails into.

Katherine snorted with laughter. "Oh, please, Damon. Don't be ridiculous. I don't want a taste of my own blood." The doppelgänger joke was not appreciated by Elena, who scowled in response.

"What do you want, then?"

Her fingernails rolled across her knee. "There is a certain vampire that has recently been awakened…"

"And we care, why?"

Her eyes languidly rose from behind her eyelids. "Try to be a little kinder, Damon. You used to be such a gentleman." She grinned wickedly. _Blackmailing bitch._

"My manners don't extend to those who threaten my—Elena." Damon barely caught himself. Elena was standing behind him, so he couldn't see her face, but he could only hope she didn't catch that he almost called her _his_ anything.

Katherine chuckled again, eyebrows shooting up in disbelief. "_Your_ what, Damon? Were you going to say something?"

_Damn_. "My…" He suddenly became aware that he had to label their relationship. Before, he had avoided the answer to Elena's shocking question ("Are we in love?"). Now, he had to say something. Although he'd been about to say "my girl", that wouldn't do in this situation.

"My friend. I don't respect those who threaten my friends." _I hate you_, his eyes told Katherine.

She smiled genuinely in response. "Oh. My mistake…" The older doppelgänger stood up and paced the room.

"As I was saying…This particular vampire has similar views to that of Mikael."

"And…?" Elena wasn't certain who Mikael was, but he didn't sound good.

"…And he wants to rid the world of our kind."

There was a minor silence. Katherine took a deep, unneeded breath. Suddenly, she looked haggard, maybe even frightened.

"Elena…I need your blood to ensure that Damon and I don't die."

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_**Although this is primarily a romance, I hope this cliffhanger gives ya'll a glimpse into what is yet to come. I have very detailed plans for the direction of this fic, so bear with me. There will be angst, gore, drama, mystery, and (obviously) plenty of Delena. However, if I ever write anything that irks you, please let me know. I'm more than willing to improve. :D **_

_**If you ever see any plot inconsistencies, by the way, I'd be indebted if you pointed them out. Thanks for your reviews and favorites!**_


	11. Chapter XI: Doppelgänger Problems

**_Note by the Authoress: I don't own any portion of the Vampire Diaries, although I do claim intellectual ownership of any and all characters I created through my own imagination (Mordecai "Cage" Brillion). _**

**_I know I said once a week at most, but I felt like writing. So here is where this story is headed. Please give me some feedback about the new direction the story is taking. And thank you for taking the time to read it! Whilst reading this chapter, you might want to listen to "Mistral Wind" by Heart; that's what I was listening to primarily when I wrote this. Oh, and Happy Hanukkah! :D_**

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_i_

_The year is 1885 and the location, London. A man dressed in black tweed hails a hansom in the wee hours of the morning. The horses' hooves clatter on the cobblestone street, breaking the eerie silence pervading the foggy night. The man immediately throws himself into the backseat._

"Where to, sir?" The driver yawned.

"Hell."

The driver wasn't certain he'd heard correctly, so he twisted downward to look into his hansom's window. The man's face was pointing downward and was cloaked by the darkness, submerged in shadows. The driver jumped down from his seat and stood at the window before the dark stranger.

"What was that, sir?"

The shadows seemed to pulsate in agony, or so the driver thought. He suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of paralyzing horror, acutely aware that something was very, _very _wrong. Slowly, the man's face angled upward to reveal throbbing scarlet veins rising and trailing from his bloodshot, blackening eyes. His lips curled back into a blood-curdling smile…with two crimson-dripping canines protruding.

"I said…take me to _hell_. I feel like visiting home."

A scream resonated through the empty alleyways, growing tremulous and dying with a gargle.

The man removed a handkerchief from his inner coat-pocket and daintily dabbled at the blood on his lips. The driver lay prone on the dirty street, his horses bucking and whinnying in a frenzied protest. Mordecai Brillion brushed the dirt off his coat, rubbed the soles of his polished black shoes to the ground, and walked away briskly.

He was halfway home when, suddenly, he heard the pit-patter of a girl's step somewhere behind him. Turning, he saw a young girl run fearfully from an alleyway into the street. She was heaving for air, holding her side. The unfortunate girl was wearing one of those ridiculous corsets. Mordecai scoffed, wishing those preposterous things would finally go out of style. The girl looked poor—she had to be someone's maid. In fact, Mordecai almost felt sorry for her. (Almost).

"Hello, little one." His voice was like a shard of ice—cold, sharp, crystal clear, yet somehow beautiful. The Irish brogue resonated in the silent night like a mockery; the girl was all alone. The abandoned buildings along the street housed no souls to save her. If she screamed, she'd only be met by the echo of her own terror.

He stood before her, inches from her face. "What is a delicate thing such as yourself doing _all alone_ in such a seedy side of London?" He smiled at her. It wasn't the hungry smile he'd given the driver…at least, it wasn't the same kind of hunger. "Surely such a virtuous creature," his eyes raked across her body, "should know better than to visit these streets?"

The girl swallowed. Her chest quivered and her body shook. She was cold. Gooseflesh rose on her dark skin and her breath turned to fog before her face. The girl was short and delicate—perhaps only a bit taller than one and a half meters, with a thin, lithe frame that looked as if it might snap at the slightest irregular pressure. She looked the monster in his eyes earnestly.

"Please," she whispered desperately. "You have to help me!"

"What are you running from?" he asked, feigning the Good Samaritan. He pretended to look intrepidly protective, knitting his eyebrows together in false concern.

She whipped her head around in all directions, as if waiting for something heinous to leap out of the fog at any moment. Her dark curls bounced and a few locks fell out of the bun at the base of her neck. Her neck…

She gasped suddenly and tears flowed from her eyes. Her eyes looked at him begging, wide and insistent.

"I'm looking for someone," she confided quietly, sobs making choking noises as they escaped her throat.

Mordecai leaned forward, turning his ear to her. "Who, pray tell?" He liked this game. She was his plaything and he was the bored cat…

She leaned forward as if to murmur something in the shell of his ear.

"Mordecai."

The breathless whisper gave way to an earth-shattering torture, a vice-grip sinking itself into his brain. It felt like a thousand wooden bullets pounding into his skull all at once. He felt his body collapse in tremors to the cobblestone, vaguely aware of the Latin incantations which seemed to engulf him. There was something wrong, but he couldn't think of what it was. He knew she was a witch, but she didn't need to chant to cause him pain. He suddenly realized that she was casting some sort of spell on him, but he was useless to do anything about it.

His bloody-murder scream broke free from his chest and cut through the fog, resonating on the building walls.

Then, the pain abruptly stopped. He gasped and looked all around him, but the girl was gone. He sat on the street, somehow aware that he should be waiting for something. But he was met only by the fading echo of his own screams.

_ii_

"Well, what the hell did the witch do to him?" Damon urged impatiently. Katherine glared.

"You can't listen to the whole story without interruption? Impatient, are we?"

"I never knew you were such an unbearably longwinded storyteller. This is getting ridiculous. What did the incantation _do?_"

She shrugged in surrender. "She made him a hunter. The incantation made him a slave unto the notion of wiping out the vampire species."

Damon grunted. "That wouldn't be such a bad idea if I wasn't a vampire… But I still don't see where Elena's blood comes into play."

Elena shifted uncomfortably on the other side of the room.

"Well, Damon," Katherine began, "the witch also gave him the tools with which to carry out his mission. She gave him the knowledge to perform a ritual that would make all vampires incapable of drinking human blood."

"_That _does not sound very fun…"

"Agreed. The ritual, however, requires quite a bit of energy, so to speak. Similar to the comet that you tried to use to open the tomb…"

"I wouldn't have tried if I knew you weren't in it. And if I knew what a total self-serving sociopath you were, I wouldn't have wanted to release you in the first place."

Elena's face contorted with obvious confusion. She looked to Damon for clarification, but he only shrugged as if to say "I'll tell you later".

Katherine continued, disregarding Damon's sleight. "The girl, a powerful witch named Cordelia, would have done it herself if she could have lived over a hundred and fifty years. But, since she had no desire to spend a chunk of eternity doing the dirty work, she chose Mordecai to do her bidding, which he has been doing since she bewitched him.

"The ritual requires two parts. The first must occur during a solar eclipse and involves the prolonged psychological starvation of a dozen or so vampires…" Damon gawked. "That half of the ritual was taken care of over a hundred years ago. The next portion involves sacrificing about twenty werewolves during a lunar eclipse. Since lunar eclipses are much more common, that part was taken care of not too long ago—maybe fifty years. It is apparently quite an undertaking to find twenty werewolves.

"The last part is fairly straightforward. On June 5th, when Venus transits, the new doppelgänger must be turned into a vampire and drained of all her blood by another vampire. The Venus-transit only occurs once every five-hundred years or so, when the Earth, Sun, and Venus align."

"What a perfect time to die." Elena's voice was cold and harsh. Damon knew that she only got that way when she was about to cry; she'd pretend to be exhausted, wait until she was alone, then let out all the tears. At the moment, however, she was doing her best to stifle them, although Damon could smell the salt.

"No need to be sardonic, Elena. I don't want you to die." (_Yet_, Damon sneered internally.) "However, as usual, it is your blood that reverses the ritual."

"How exactly does that work?"

"Mordecai (or Cage, as he now calls himself) has been transferring the energy from the rituals into an amulet of sorts. He actually doesn't know where the thing is, since the witch hid it. She was afraid her mind control would fade off after she died. Unluckily, he doesn't need to ever so much as touch the thing so long as he carries the rituals through properly. But, if we can find and melt the amulet with your fresh blood in an ancient fire spell, the ritual is void. The amulet is the key; all we need to do is find and destroy it."

"Or…," Damon smirked, "We could just avoid the bastard!"

"Well, that wouldn't be such an awful idea if it weren't a miracle already that Elena is still alive. He arrived in Mystic Falls a few hours after her Great Escape." Katherine looked at Elena pointedly. "Bravo, by the way, Steven McQueen."

Elena could feel her heart thudding in her chest. She knew she'd been sacrificed before and all this wasn't supposed to seem so surreal, but it did. She didn't even remember these people…why should she trust them? There was so much that she couldn't remember, didn't understand…

Elena gasped for air.

"I need to breathe!" She rushed outside the motel door and keeled over, gripping the banister of the hallway balcony. Damon followed her and leaned over her trembling body. He made comforting noises, but she wouldn't have it.

"I need to be alone, Damon. Give me a minute." He looked confused, then worried.

"Don't worry, Damon. I'll stay here, I just need to think. You'll just be on the other side of the door." Still unconvinced.

"With super-hearing." Unmoving.

"With vampiric speed," Katherine chimed wearily from within the room.

Damon sighed in resignation and nodded.

He walked back into the room and shut the door. He glared at Katherine, looked at the door, and back at her.

"What game are you playing?"

"The I-don't-want-to-die game." Damon narrowed his eyes.

"Is that why you aren't telling her I could return her memory?"

Katherine laughed humorlessly.

"Her ignorance is in my favor, Damon. If she thinks I will return her memory because no one else can, that guarantees she'll help me. It is a bargaining chip. If you will return it for free, what have I got? And if I shatter her trust in you, she will have little desire to save your life. As of now, she knows exactly what she could be getting herself into, she knows it will save her life, and she thinks it is her only shot at getting back her memory. If you ask me, nobody's losing here."

Damon hated to admit it, but Katherine was right. Her manipulation didn't sit well with him, but if he hadn't wanted to manipulate Elena he shouldn't have lied to her in the first place.

Suddenly, the door swung open. Elena's eyes were red from tears, but currently dry. She took a deep breath.

"So. How do we find this amulet?"

* * *

**_Another chapter in the same week…I'm such a liar haha I hope you like it! I know it is becoming extremely cliché to have Elena's blood as the key to EVERYTHING, but it is exactly what they would have done in the series. Basically, there are several common themes in the Vampire Diaries: Elena's blood is the key to everything. Stephan must be a typical broody Byronic hero. Damon must always be sarcastic, drunk, and must never get what he wants/deserves. Sadness..._**

**_I had no idea what to name this chapter, so I went with a "Hot Problems" parody title. That probably wasn't as evident as it could have been._**

**_Anywho! Please Read and Review. I love getting feedback! :) Hearts!_**


	12. Chapter XII: Cauldrons & Evil Trinkets

**_Note by the Authoress: Let me know about the new direction the story is taking. And thanks for reading it! :D_**

* * *

_i_

Her dark eyes stared at the miscellaneous items on the dining room table. A glut of candles lit the dark room, leaving shadows to play across the dimly-illuminated grimoire, photograph, crumpled t-shirt, and other paraphernalia. The shirt was Damon's. The photograph, grotesquely grim in the dull lighting, used to frame Damon, Elena, and Stephan. Stephan, however, had been ripped out of the image some time ago. And now the picture itself was doomed to burn.

It was past nightfall now, which aligned with the spell's instructions. Bonnie held a thick, black fiber between her fingers, twisting it around as she examined it. She sighed.

The hair had been discovered under Elena's sheets, in the side crevice of her mattress. _Where bedbugs usually live_, Bonnie thought sarcastically. She didn't even know vampires shed hair, but she was certainly glad for it now. The hair had probably found its way into the pleat when Elena was removing her bedding to be washed some months ago. They were very lucky to have found it, although it had taken many hours of exhaustive searching.

First the shirt was soaked in some acrid-smelling broth—a cliché Tyler didn't hesitate to mock.

Then, it was gently ripped by its seams with a silver knife. The on-lookers couldn't help but be a bit terrified. The shirt looked as if it were bleeding.

She dropped it into a little bowl with a tiny fire inside, causing the flame to ignite into a foot-high kitchen bonfire.

The fire alarms started to go off after a moment. Everyone scrambled to claw the batteries from them in the dark while Bonnie did her best to carry on with the spell. After a few chair-stumbling incidents and an explicative or two uttered, the noise stopped.

Once the commotion died down, Bonnie added some herbs to the fire, began chanting, and slowly burned the photograph.

As her voice rose and the flame grew higher, she dropped in the dark hair. She could hear her own voice echoing off the walls. The voice rose and rose and—

Bonnie was suddenly somewhere else. The room was grayish-black, like she was in a shadow-world. Her breath was the only sound she could hear. Then, barely-audible whispers of something else. The whispers became more coherent and the room seemed to become a bit lighter.

She saw three murky figures in a room, two standing and one sitting at a computer. She couldn't see their faces, but she recognized the voice at the computer as Elena's.

"Done. We have tickets for London tomorrow."

Then, a low, masculine voice:

"Good. Let's get out of here…something doesn't feel right about this place." Then, he looked straight at Bonnie. She could see his eyes. Yes, it was definitely Damon and he could sense her because she used his hair to find them. She had to leave before he truly realized it was more than a bad feeling.

But she needed to know why they were going to England…

"Shouldn't we sleep first? I mean, we want to be rested up if we want to...and…" Bonnie could barely hear Elena now, her voice undulating in and out of Bonnie's frequency.

"No, you can sleep in the car. We can go without."

Who was the third person? Another vampire?

She heard the third person inhale breath to speak, but Bonnie's vision obscured and she blacked out, hearing the voices of the Jeremy and Caroline screaming at her to wake up.

_ii_

"So why would we find Cordy's amulet in England?"

The unlikely trio of a vampire, his centuries-old ex-lover, and her teenage doppelgänger were speeding down the highway in Damon's (likely stolen) black Porsche. Damon was driving but, as always, had his eyes on anything but the road. Katherine sat in the front seat with her legs crossed, checking her make-up in the sun-shield mirror. And Elena was in the backseat, somehow still incapable of quite absorbing her unusual situation.

Katherine paused with her mascara-applicator to her eyelid, quirking her eyebrow at the nickname Damon used for the vamp-hating witch. "Cordy? Really?"

"Well. We have a Cordelia whose aim is to decimate the vampire species—Sounds kinda' like Buffy's girl to me," he shrugged. "Ergo, Cordy." This was apparently a ludicrous notion to Katherine, who proceeded to verbalize her aggravation.

Elena listened to their bitter bantering without much attentiveness. Her mind was elsewhere, drifting between (now) seemingly unimportant things like leaving her car in the driveway of a motel, to all-important questions like how vampires could exist, whether or not the Scooby gang (as Damon facetiously dubbed her friends) was safe with Cage in Mystic Falls, and why she allowed herself to get into this mess…to asking herself about the way Damon's eyes kept sneaking peeks at her through the rearview mirror.

Or the kiss.

Or that heinous question that should have never leapt off her unbridled tongue.

Elena's eyes darted downward to avoid his mesmerizing gaze and she could almost feel his disappointment. Her brain struggled to regain access to the conversation, still dizzy from the thought of Damon's enveloping adoration sweeping over her, running through from her lips to every inch of her body. _Every_ inch.

Realizing that thinking too much about it could be very bad for the situation (since she was becoming indistinctly aware that vampires could sense certain emotions), she quickly forced herself into awareness.

"…you are comparing a well-respected ancient witch to a high school drama queen from a teen soap opera."

"_Buffy_ was not a soap opera. I actually enjoyed it." Elena couldn't help but giggle. She knew he was only saying that to annoy Katherine. "What do you have against it, anyway?"

"I have something against the portrayal of vampires, such as myself, as cheesy-looking half-off-rack Halloween ghouls."

"Oh, so you didn't mind the 'soulless and evil' part? Just as long as they think you're pretty?"

Katherine smirked. Unfortunately, Damon had hit the nail on the head.

The girl in the back seat cleared her throat. Damon crooked an eyebrow, but didn't try to make mirror eye contact again.

"So…," Elena began, "I don't think Katherine answered why we're heading to England."

Katherine smiled. "I did, Elena. I wonder why you didn't hear me…Engrossed in something else?"

Elena was beginning to hate the faux-innocent rhetorical questions her imposter liked to use. She stole a glance at Damon, who she could see was fighting to keep his face straight. She wondered if he was fighting off a smirk or a scowl…?

"I was worrying about the Scoob—my friends in Mystic Falls."

The Lena-poster snickered. "At least you caught some of our conversation, albeit the pointless portion." She yawned. "I was saying that the amulet was broken into three pieces. One is buried with Cordelia in England. The other two were given to witch-clans to protect through the generations. A witch's grave is apparently the typical place to hide their evil trinkets."

_Evil trinkets?_ Elena laughed humorlessly at the irony. _Is it really such an evil idea to rid the world of vampires? Shouldn't creatures that attack humans, kill humans, with the power to manipulate their minds be destroyed? _Elena didn't think it was such a bad idea, objectively speaking. But then she would look at Damon and she would think of Caroline. _And surely Bonnie, for all her supernatural power, wouldn't deserve to die, either. Or Alaric. Or Jeremy. Or Tyler._ And, even though she didn't really like Katherine, surely she didn't deserve to die, either! (Although Elena didn't know quite enough about Katherine to truly make that determination.) She looked at the whole of the concept and she realized that if the creatures of the earth had devising minds, wouldn't they want to destroy humans? _Shouldn't animals want to annihilate us for killing them, capturing them, treating them with cruelty, for burning their forests or even mowing our lawns?_ It seemed ridiculous. But it was a new perspective on things. _Perhaps humans are just as evil but we rationalize away our guilt for what we do to each other. If we deserve the benefit of the doubt by our own standards, don't vampires deserve the benefit of the doubt, too? _There are more bad people than good people, more cruel circumstance than happiness in the world—Elena had decided that long ago, sometime quickly after her parents died. But she still had faith in the world, or at least had faith in the few good people who made her give the world a second chance. And, looking at Damon, somehow knowing that even among these evil creatures there was someone as beautiful as him, she convinced herself to have faith in vampires, too.

She wasn't convincing herself that evil didn't exist; she had merely convinced herself that no entire race should be convicted because they have the ability to do evil. _Innocent until proven guilty, on a case-to-case basis. _

_The world is seen in many cases of black-and-white, fading to grey in the eagle-eye view._

There was some unknown irony in Elena's trust of Damon, who had just unwittingly won over her vote in the fight to save the vampire species. Damon was lying to her.

And it was slowly killing him.

_iii_

Everyone had insisted she take her rest after she overexerted her powers on the location spell, which seemed to yield few results—at least they could pinpoint the _country _Elena was running to, but a country is a large space of land to search for a single girl. So they had called it a night. And now, sleep didn't seem as restful for Bonnie as it should have been.

Bonnie Bennett thrashed in her sleep. Her eyes fluttered, her fingers clutched to the sheets at her sides.

Suddenly heaving for breath, she sat up, groping for her chest. She looked around the room, searching for the cause of the night terror, but she couldn't remember what the nightmare was about. And the room didn't look quite right…it was too cold, it was too—

Her bed was in a graveyard. Bonnie's eyes grew wide. She was cold, freezing. It was nighttime, lit dimly by the full moon, and forestry surrounded every side of her strange environment. She somehow knew this, too, was a dream, but she could also tell she wasn't in control of it. There was something (someone?) else at play, here.

She carefully slipped out of the covers and let her feet reach the moist, dew-covered soil. She was barely wearing anything, just some boxer-shorts and a spaghetti-strap t-shirt. Holding her arms in a lame attempt to protect herself from the wind, she moved forward. Most people would have known not to, but she had a feeling this was the sort of dream where you met the danger head-on. She looked back with more than a little trepidation, wondering if she should get back into the safety of her bed. Bonnie closed her eyes and swallowed. _Too late, now._ It had already disappeared.

She slowly strolled barefoot through the lines of headstones, reading one or two without much interest.

Vera Butler, 1845

John Smithson, 1892

Cordelia Charleston, 1874

Bonnie stopped in her tracks and looked at this one seriously. Why did this name seem familiar? _Wasn't there a witch named Cordelia Charleston mentioned in several grimoires?_

"Yes, there was."

Bonnie spun around. In front of her was a pretty red-headed girl in a deteriorating 19th-century dress. She smiled and Bonnie could feel her insides churn. Although her face seemed intact, her skin was almost translucent and Bonnie could see her skull underneath it. Gooseflesh rose on Bonnie skin. She took a few steps back, but the girl tilted her head in some amusement.

"Darling, please," she grinned wickedly. "You're treading on my grave."

* * *

**_Note by the Authoress: Concerning the Scooby Gang reference: From Scooby Doo to Buffy to the Vampire Diaries—It's a triple rip-off!_**

**_I intended on making this a much longer chapter, which I outlined a few days ago, but I realized that I hadn't posted in a while (3 months, at least), so I decided to post this until I got the good part finished. Yes, I said the "good part". Be warned: The next chapter gets a little dark(er)._**

**_Please R&R. Hearts. _**

**_My own favorite line:_**_ The world is seen in many cases of black-and-white, fading to grey in the eagle-eye view._


	13. Chapter XIII: Dreams

**_Okay, so this chapter is short, but good. Again, I had intended on making it much longer, but I decided that I had to make up for my (second) long hiatus. I don't think the first part is my best work, but I might adjust it later. Please enjoy! :)_**

_i_

_The room was dark._

_Blue eyes. Black hair. Smirk. A bloodcurdling scream._

Flashes of memory flickered through Elena's mind.

_The room was dark, but moonlight streamed dully through the window. The open window._

_The room was pitch-black as Elena reached for the light-switch, hands trembling. She swallowed…and it was the only other sound beside her breathing. _

_She still couldn't find the wall, although she was now anxiously moving backward. She prayed to God her hand would finally find it, but she wasn't going fast enough and she suddenly became frantic. She turned and ran to where she thought the door was located, but instead ran into something else. _

_Elena screamed as her body met the dresser, sufficiently bruising her left knee and totally winding her of air. _

_She heard steps down the hall and would have run in that direction if she didn't feel so petrified._

_The door squeaked open. Her heart beat erratically and she heard the light-switch flick on. The light blinded her and she covered her eyes with her forearm._

_A man with blue eyes peeked inside. He sighed._

_"Elena," he yawned. "Again?" _

_Elena pouted up at her father. "I'm sorry," the ten-year-old murmured. "I had the nightmare again and I couldn't find the light-switch." Her father chuckled._

_"Sweetie," he tiredly drudged into her bedroom, leaned over and helped her up. "What did I tell you?" He looked at her earnestly._

_Elena looked down at the mismatched pink and yellow socks covering her toes. "I shouldn't be afraid of the dark," she sighed._

_"Why?" he smiled encouragingly. Elena chewed on her cheek and rolled her eyes at herself. _

_"Because..," she closed her eyes and giggled. She felt so silly now. "Because monsters aren't real!" _

_Her father giggled with her and they pretended to hush each other because they didn't want to wake up Mom or Jeremy._

There was a sadness in his eyes that she couldn't see then, but she would remember it later on.

Suddenly the setting changed.

Images of the car flying off the bridge, like photo stills, took their turn torturing her. She wanted to cry, but couldn't quite remember how. Memories seemed to roll through her head like a roulette wheel, speeding by until they decided on a single stream.

_She was seventeen now. She wasn't afraid of the dark anymore because she knew the dark wasn't what you should be afraid of—it was what lurked within it. And although she now knew monsters were very real, that was never what really frightened her. It was the fear of not knowing they were there._

_She walked into her blackened bedroom and yawned, not even bothering to turn on the light._

_Strolling to the bed in her PJs, she began to pull back the sheets, but her hand hit something hard. She sighed._

_"Let me guess…," she groaned, pretending to sound aggravated, "…hm, Damon?"_

_"Ding, ding, ding!" She rolled her eyes in the darkness. She hated it when he made that stupid sound. _We aren't in a game-show, _she thought_.

_She shoved his chest, but he didn't budge, so she slipped under the covers as best she could. He was lying on the comforter, though, so that wasn't working out so well. _

_Elena stretched her arm over his chest to reach the lamp and turn it on. She looked at the vampire lying on her bed, only seven years after the fear of creatures lurking in the darkness would have paralyzed her. She couldn't appreciate the irony, however, since she refused to revisit any memories involving her dead parents._

_"Damon, get off my comforter."_

_"Oh, so it isn't, 'Damon, get off my bed'?" His voice was dripping with suggestive overtones._

_"Well, something tells me I won't have much luck with that, so I'm willing to compromise."_

_They both knew he would have left if she really told him to, but neither of them ever would have admitted that fact; it would have ruined the game._

_Damon stood up and Elena fixed her covers. He plopped back down on the bed, leather jacket, military boots and all. Elena shut off the light and closed her eyes, knowing somehow he'd be watching her all night long. Creatures in the dark didn't frighten her anymore—they comforted her._

Elena sleepily opened her eyes. At first, her eyes had to adjust to the light and noises occurring around her.

"Please don't forget your luggage." "Elena, wake up." "Yes, _please_ wake up. I hate airports."

Elena squinted to filter out the flood of brightness. People were taking down their bags and bustling out of the aircraft. _I guess we've landed_.

She cleared her throat and blinked her eyes a few dozen times, stood up groggily, and bumped into a few passengers who gave her dirty looks. Turning to Damon, "We're in London?"

He smiled, "Yep. You slept through the whole thing." Then, "How did you sleep?" The question sounded like it had two separate meanings, but Elena didn't have the energy yet to analyze it.

"Um…good." She rubbed her eyes sleepily.

Then the realization hit her. _That was the first full memory I've had_ _of the missing months since I was compelled. _She looked at him and, without really thinking, she grinned.

She couldn't have known he'd been sitting in on the dream the whole time. She couldn't have known how happy it made him to think that memory would make her grin.

_ii_

"Careful, darling. You're treading on my grave."

Bonnie caught her breath in her throat. It was _that_ Cordelia Charleston. The vampire-torturer who was murdered by her own daughter for being a witch. The second most powerful witch to ever live, only shadowed by Ester herself. Bonnie cursed internally.

"I see my reputation precedes me," the corpse drawled. Bonnie realized suddenly that her thoughts could be heard in this realm—wherever this realm _was_.

"Good guess," Cordelia confirmed. She giggled, revealing rotting flesh inside her mouth. There was something sickly sweet about her attitude that made Bonnie want to run. It sounded like the laugh of a sociopath—someone who could only fake laughter, but pulled it off a little too well. Cordelia cocked her head at this thought, but apparently chose not to comment.

She walked around Bonnie slowly, circling her own grave. Her fingers slid across Bonnie's bare arm and the girl stiffened. A nail from Cordelia's forefinger fell off, causing her to laugh hysterically, cackling through the crisp, icy air.

The laughter stopped abruptly just behind Bonnie.

She swiveled around. The witch was gone. Bonnie heaved for air. _Where is she?_ Bonnie saw a bush just across the graveyard and recognized it as the sole ingredient in a weak, but effective, protection spell. _If I can reach it in time…_

"Please." Cordelia was suddenly beside her. Bonnie lurched backward and fell over the tombstone, landing in the un-raked autumn leaves. She stared at Cordelia in shock, but the witch kept staring after the bush.

"This is my realm. And I am the only one with power in my realm." The bush caught on fire and disintegrated into the ground. "That's why you're lucky I'm not your enemy here." She smiled and looked down at Bonnie, still sprawled on the moist leaves.

She leaned down and seemed to be about to lend her hand to help her up, then noticed it was flaking away in the breeze. She looked at Bonnie as if to apologize and retracted her offer.

"Well," she turned and began to walk. "We should probably go now." _Go?_ "Not leave," she called back. "Just go."

Bonnie could see she wanted her to follow, so she got up and walked a ways behind her, albeit reluctantly. It wasn't as if she had any other choice.

They walked grimly through the lines of headstones for some time, a dilapidating corpse-ghost in an antiquated black dress followed by a teenager in skimpy pajamas. Bonnie couldn't tell how long it was. Since she was in some sort of dream world, it could have been hours or minutes and she wouldn't have been able to discern.

Finally, the redhead turned around to meet Bonnie. She was instantly inches from her face, but Bonnie was so paralyzed she couldn't jump back. Through her eyes, Bonnie could see worms eating away at the corpse's flesh. She knew it wasn't in real-time, since the witch died ages ago and would be a clean skeleton by now, but that wasn't of much comfort. The grey eyes stared into Bonnie's. One lost focus and looked as if it might fall out of its socket. Bonnie was whimpering now, on the verge of crying. She could smell death in the air.

Cordelia's arm rose and pointed over Bonnie's shoulder. The voice was low and hoarse.

"Take care of it for me, won't you? Hallowed ground, darling, is holy ground." The witch grinned at the irony. "Not that I ever respected anything holy before death," she added on in a cracking voice.

Bonnie carefully turned around, holding her breath.

In front of her were Damon and Elena. But Elena was being pinned by her throat to an oak tree on the edge of the cemetery, grasping at Damon's wrist while veins rose from under his eyes. He was seething.

"I'm going to kill you," he vowed.

Behind Bonnie, Cordelia murmured in a sing-song voice, "He never was the same, was he, after she chose Stephan?" Bonnie couldn't help it now; she was sobbing, trying to cover her eyes, but something was preventing her. She'd never seen Elena in such pain; it was obvious in her face.

"Why aren't you fighting back?" Damon growled to her. Bonnie couldn't stand this; he was mocking her.

Bonnie whirled around to yell at the ghostly figure, but she couldn't get words out into the open air. _Why are you showing this to me?_ her mind screamed.

"It hasn't happened yet," Cordelia said, abruptly serious. "So stop it." Bonnie began to see tunnel vision, the world becoming black like it had in her last vision.

"Or _I will._"

Bonnie flew from her bed and landed on her bedroom floor, tears streaming, a cold sweat covering every inch of her body. The room was freezing.

She stood up and rushed for her cell phone. She dropped it on the floor the first time she tried to hold it, her hands shaking uncontrollably.

When she had it in her hand and had finally unlocked the touchscreen, she hit the number three.

**Caroline Forbes** lit up on the screen. She put the phone to her ear and leaned against the wall. She crouched on the floor, crying while it rang on the opposite line.

"Hel—Bonnie, why are you crying?!"

"Care," she sobbed, terror arresting her voice, "Care, we need—we need to go to England."

"Bonnie, of course we're going to England, is everything alri—"

"NO! We need to go _now!_ Care, he's going to—" She choked and shook against the wall.

"Bon—Bonnie, _who _is going to do _what?_"

"Damon!" she screeched angrily.

"Okay, I'm coming over so we can…" Caroline didn't get to finish her sentence. Bonnie screamed the words out:

"Damon is going to kill Elena!"


End file.
